Stab Bruno Mars in his Goddamn Esophagus
by JustSayNoToPants
Summary: Gamzee's life revolves around his spit fire of a roommate, stabbing people full of holes, and a boy who lives in the stacks of the library. Unfortunately, he's also tied to a bottle of pills that sits so unassumingly in his bathroom cabinet. GamTav
1. And Don't Stop Until The Cops Come In

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gamzee or Karkat or Homestuck, as I'm not nearly as fly as Andrew Hussie. However, I do own the hours spent writing and researching this monstrosity.

**Pairings**: Gamzee/Tavros main. Various other pairings to float around in the background.

**Warnings:** Blatant fluff and adorableness, boy/boy situations, future boy/girl and girl/girl situations, recreational drug use and references to stoner culture, serious psychological illnesses, abuse of multitudes of cliches, mediocre to awful rap battles, filthy language, varying creativity of insults, Gamzee cooking, Karkat being a little bitch, Gamzee's obsession with clowns, and darker themes to be added in time.

**Summary:** Gamzee's life revolves around his spit fire of a roommate, stabbing people full of holes, and a boy who lives in the stacks of the library. Unfortunately, he's also tied to a bottle of pills that sits so unassumingly in his bathroom cabinet.

**Author would like you to note:** The title, while hilarious, is a working title. And it's also taken from Tyler, The Creator's _Yonkers_. You're going to need to know a little bit about that man if you're going to understand Tavros in later chapters. Just sayin'. Also, this chapter was written entirely to Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - Das Racist + Brodyquest between studying for finals. Enjoy this jamboree.

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"Calm your shit, motherfucker, we're almost done here."

"Calm my shit? Fuck you, titwank! You're the one that fucking dragged me in here like a slaughtered heifer being presented to have the choice parts sliced from it's steaming fucking corpse."

"Get your chill on, best friend. All this melodrama's gotta come from those motherfuckin' romcoms, brother."

"Shut your gaping goddamn suck hole, Gamzee, you fucking-_ow_! Jesus Christ's nipples, are you about fucking done yet?" The easy smile on Gamzee's face widened as he twisted the final bead into place, staunching Karkat's blood with a cotton ball.

"We're good, man. Don't touch it, you're still bleeding up in here."

"Goddamn it, what the fuck did I ever do to deserve such a shitty best friend? This better be punishment for something, because I can't stand knowing that I might be fucking struggling through this goddamn disease through no one's fault but my own." Gamzee put all of his tools onto the tray, readying them for sterilization before swabbing Karkat's ear with a mild disinfectant.

"It's just a motherfuckin' miracle, bro. Don't look too hard into it, you'll fill up your think-pan and take all the fuckin' magic out of everything." He ruffled a hand through his friend's shaggy hair before Karkat was up and off of the piercing bench, a sneer on his face.

"Fuck off with this spiritualist bullshit, shit sponge. Get your fucking clown face away from me, don't you know about personal fucking space?"

"This is an exceptionally healthy relationship you guys enjoy, but can you tone down your lush bromance for ten minutes? We have other people in the shop." Aradia had ceased hovering over his shoulder the moment he'd finished mutilating Karkat's cartilage, already immersed in the glossy pages of a textbook.

"That's cool, sis. We'll get out of your motherfuckin' way as soon as I'm finished with this shit, yeah?" Karkat had already slung his bag over his shoulder and left, muttering about abusive douche bags immersed to their ears in sadism.

"You're getting better. I won't have to supervise you soon," Aradia said, her hand flying across lined pages as she scrawled notes in ultramarine.

"Really? Thanks sis, that's fuckin' bitchtits awesome. You are a fuckin' miracle, girl, you got more patience than Florence fuckin' Nightingale up in here." Aradia let out the barest laugh, lips twitching up at the corners while onyx eyes followed lines of black text.

"Don't you have to babysit the college kids today? Get that cleaned up, you can't afford to be late again and you still have to wash your face paint off." Gamzee rolled his eyes, a grin stamped firmly onto his face.

"Yeah sis, I'm getting on it. You just do your thing, I'll get this shit cleaned up." Gamzee gathered all of the bloody cotton and disposed of it in the biohazardous waste bin, rinsing the metal tools before dropping them in the white container of Cidex, the needle going straight into the sharps disposal. He pulled the black gloves off his hands, replacing them with a clean pair to wipe the station down with disinfectant. It smelled harsh, the chemicals potent, a direct assault to his olfactory senses. When he was finished cleaning he threw the gloves out, rubbing his dry palms together.

"Alright, fuckin' done. Gotta put the tools up in the Ultrasonic in an hour, but I'll be neck deep in books and cranky motherfuckin' kids." Aradia nodded, not taking her concentration from the book in front of her.

"Thanks. See you tomorrow, and try not to get in trouble." Gamzee grinned in her direction as he pulled his sweater off the hook, zipping himself into it.

"You know me, sis. I ain't got no trouble for any brother, some motherfuckers are just hostile, y'know?" With a lazy laugh, he sauntered out of the room, walking to the door and meeting Karkat's sardonic sneer with the permanent smile etched into his cheeks.

The bathroom smelled of cheap cleaners and human refuse. Gamzee was slouched over the sink, scrubbing his face with long, thin fingers. He wiped the water out of his eyes, looking up at the mirror. The hair around his face was wet, messy curls weighed down from the water, and atramentous eyes stared back at him. He still had a line of white across his jaw. He rubbed at it with damp fingers, feeling stubble beginning to work its way out of his skin. He'd have to shave soon; no motherfucker wanted to wander around with face paint all up in their motherfucking facial hair.

The makeup seemed far too bright against the pigmentation of his skin. Gamzee filled his hand with pink soap from the dispenser. He rubbed it between his palms before bending back down to work the paint out of his pores.

The bathroom was quiet, but that only made sense. He was in a fucking library, of course the bathrooms would be silent. Every movement seemed cacophonous, sounds ricocheting endlessly across discoloured tiles and dirty mirrors and negative space. He dried his face off with rough paper towel, looking at his reflection in the water stained mirror. His eyes almost looked bruised under the florescent lighting, the lack of sleep leaving him with dark bags beneath obsidian optics. His cheeks were sunken, his face hollowed out.

In all honesty, he looked like fucking shit. He looked like he needed to fall into a 72 hour coma if only to catch up on sleep. His eyes were still bloodshot from the joint he'd shared with Karkat four hours ago, before the piercing fandango and the red mark on his shin that would undoubtably bloom into a splotchy, heliotrope bruise.

Gamzee dried his hands off and tried to squeeze some of the water from his hair before heading out of the bathroom, hands deep in the pockets of his sweater. It was seven o'clock and the library was absolutely packed, every table covered with textbooks and loose leaf covered in ink. Midterm season left everyone swamped, and Gamzee didn't envy them a bit. Poor motherfuckers, drowning in academia, fueled by nothing but sugar and high doses of caffeine.

He walked through the common area into the stacks, voices falling to muffled whispers as the door swung behind him. Silent areas weren't exactly his thing - he liked to interact with the people around him - but a paycheck was a motherfucking paycheck at the end of the day. He stepped into the office at the right, nodding at the pretty girl who's shift he was taking off.

"Busy up in here?" he asked, full well knowing the answer because the majority of student population was sequestered in the library, racing neck and neck with due dates. Gamzee hung his sweater up, pulling the hem of his purple t-shirt down before running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, it's a mad house. Good luck tonight, I'm sure there are going to be some irate kids by the time closing rolls around."

"I can handle a couple motherfuckers sassin' me, sis, don't you fuckin' worry." She grinned, giving a final wave before ducking out of the office. Gamzee stood in the middle of the room for a moment, stretched his arms over his head before dropping his limbs with a sigh. He headed out to slip behind the front desk, plopping down in one of the wheeled chairs and pulling up to a computer.

It was way too fucking silent in there considering the amount of people around him. He helped tired looking students find their books and he had to dig through the books at the circulation desk a few times, but it was a pretty easy night. All of the kids pouring over novels and reference books had already found everything they needed, leaving him sitting pretty uselessly behind the desk. The other girl, he couldn't remember her name for the life of him, had already sorted all of the books for re-shelving.

To pass the time, Gamzee rolled around in the chair, the silly grin plastered across his face as he spun himself until he was lightheaded with dizziness. He dropped his forehead against the desk, groaning low in his throat and waiting for the world to stop spinning, waiting for the fireworks behind his eyelids to fade out.

He wanted to stand up and wander around; he was strangely fidgety and didn't know why when generally he was as chilled out as a motherfucker can be.

That being said, there was a motherfuckin' miracle waiting in that library. He could feel it like a pinch of fuckin' star dust running through his veins.

He hadn't seen the pretty boy yet. He really was due for a visit.

Gamzee grabbed a pen from the desk and a piece of scrap paper from the recycling bin. He started doodling in his boredom, clowns dancing across the wrinkles in the paper, eye sockets empty and smiles full of sharp teeth.

"Uh, excuse me?" A small voice, a familiar voice; Gamzee lifted his head and his grin widened, white teeth flashing from between the sensual curve of his mouth. The drawing that he was so intent upon was suddenly brushed to the side, left to be forgotten under the sedentary press of more important things.

"Yeah, bro?" The Pretty Boy, all cheekbones and hazel eyes and fluffy, espresso hair. He'd been at the library nearly every night Gamzee worked since the first semester of the year, always a shadow in the back of the silent study area. He wasn't sure if the kid was a massive keener or if a mothefucker just didn't have anywhere else to go. "What can I fuckin' do for you?"

"I'm, uh, just looking for a book. I c-can't find it on the, um, the shelf." Pretty boy with a quiet voice, hesitant and stuttering. The voice didn't mesh with his broad shoulders or the cut of his jaw. He was like a timid church mouse in the body of a stocky motherfuckin' bronco.

"You've come to the right motherfucker, bro. I can get my sortin' on for you, no motherfuckin' problem. You got the title, or the fuckin' call number or some shit?" Gamzee asked, pulling himself up to the computer again and fiddling with the mouse, watching the screen saver blink out. The kid stuttered and fumbled with his backpack, the neck of his t-shirt bunching until Gamzee was taking a long gander at his chest, russet skin stretched across hard muscle. Gamzee had never been very attentive, but he could pick out exactly where the green in his eyes faded into honey brown when the Pretty Boy caught his stare, a dark flush apparent on his high cheekbones. Gamzee leaned back, hands folded across his stomach as he waited for the Pretty Boy to find his papers, listening to his quiet, self directed admonitions.

"Don't worry your motherfuckin' mohawk about it, brother, I'm not exactly busy up in here." The kid's flush had reached his ears and Gamzee wanted to reach over the desk and ruffle the kid's hair, see if it was as soft as it looked, feel the buzzed sides against the pads of his fingers.

"It's, uh, this one," he murmured, pushing a folded piece of paper across the desk. Gamzee reached for it, catching the edge between two thin fingers. The Pretty Boy was looking down, rubbing the back of his neck and still blushing. Gamzee entered the information into the search system on the computer, pulling it up and skimming the summary.

"Okay motherfucker, it looks like it's still hiding around up in here. Wait here, bro, I'll see if it's on the motherfuckin' shelving carts or something." Gamzee got up, legs stretched out and lazily sauntering around the desk, going toward the office. He scoured the carts with half lidded eyes, biting his bottom lip when he came up empty handed. His eyebrows drew together and he straightened, hands resting on his hips for a moment. He walked out of the office, perplexed but still smiling as he walked toward the pretty boy again.

"So the fucker's not back there, bro. Let's check the shelf again, sometimes motherfuckers like to hide up there."

"Uh, okay, but I'm pretty certain that it, uh, wasn't there," the boy answered, following him further into the stacks. "Two pairs of, um, of eyes are definitely better than one, though." Gamzee's long strides brought him to the right self, eyes trailing across the little white tags and trying to find the right series of digits and letters. He crouched down, dragging a finger across the spines of the books and pulling one from the bottom shelf.

"Hey, motherfucker, look what we've got up in here!" He said, handing it up to the boy before standing up. "Motherfuckin' miracle is what that was, brother." The kid took the book and held it against his hip, drawing Gamzee's eyes to the graceful curve of his wrist.

"Oh, uh, sorry. For, um, wasting your, time." Gamzee shook his head, rolling his eyes and clapping Pretty Boy on the shoulder.

"You fuckin' don't have to be sorry, bro. It's what I'm motherfuckin' here for, dude. I'm paid for this shit, don't be saying you're fuckin' sorry."

"Um, okay. Thank you, then." Gamzee was already strolling away, waving over his shoulder.

"No worries, bro. Good luck with that fuckin' thing." There was a small group of stressed looking kids at the front desk, and he worked through their problems one by one, digging out books that had just been returned and dealing with their shitty attitudes with a lazy smile.

By the time three o'clock rolled around Gamzee was just about bored enough to set his own boxers on fire for something to do. Security was escorting the rest of the stragglers out of the stacks, giving Gamzee free reign to shut everything down and lock the doors. He backhandedly noticed that Pretty Boy wasn't among the late nighters, and wondered how much earlier he'd left.

Gamzee went around doing his business, a cigarette already perched between his lips as he locked shit up and turned the lights down. He was out of the stacks by twenty after three, taking a moment to light his cigarette before walking seven blocks to the subway. It was surprisingly warm for the middle of March, even in a sweater and jeans. Gamzee silently puffed away, preparing himself for the mindlessness of his half an hour commute, determined to finish his smoke before reaching the station.

The subway station was empty save for a bum sleeping on one of the few benches and a couple who looked like they were tweeked off their motherfuckin' faces. He waited for his train to pull up, in which he sat dejectedly in an uncomfortable plastic seat, leaning his head back against the window. He was tired, but he knew he wouldn't sleep. He was thinking about getting home and smoking a joint on the balcony, eating the left over pie in the fridge and laying in his bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe Karkat would still be up.

The train shook around him, and he couldn't help put wonder if it was going to break apart on the track, disintegrate and leave him flying headlong through the black tunnel. He wondered what it would feel like.

He spent the rest of the train ride staring into space and trying not to dig his nails into the meat of his thighs.

The pills tasted like chalk and arsenic.

They left a gritty residue on the palm of his hand; two perfectly round tablets that seemed painfully white against the pigmentation in his skin. He twisted the cap from the bottle with a single, deft movement, taking a small swig and popping the pills into his mouth. They fizzed in the carbonated drink and he grimaced as he swallowed, taking another shot of grape Faygo.

He wondered how it was possible for something to taste that bad, and why they didn't have someone fix that. It wasn't a motherfuckin' wonder so many brothers and sisters stop taking the medication when it tasted so rank that he could taste it through such a wicked fucking elixir. They should have made it taste like sugar or Skittles or something, throw a candy coating around it and tint them a veritable fucking rainbow of colours. They should have been able to do shit like that. Whoever they were, that is.

Gamzee sat on the arm of the couch, slouching and drinking more Faygo because seriously, dude, something's gotta fucking give. He wanted to replace the taste lingering in his mouth with artificial grape flavoring and he wanted it done fucking post haste. He leaned back, let himself fall back against the cushions. The springs buoyed him, and Gamzee grinned as he felt his back lift off from the couch before the springs settled enough that he could rest comfortably.

"Thanks, man," he said out loud, a permanent smile etched across his cheeks because he was a happy motherfucker, and what wasn't there to be happy about? He rubbed a cushion with a sinewy hand, feeling the rough material prick against his palm. "Lettin' me get my chill on like this. You're a motherfuckin' pal, couch." He tipped the bottle back, chugging back the rest of his drink and ignoring the tingling in his sinuses from the carbonation.

"Are you fucking talking to the couch?" Gamzee flinched, eyes darting to the dark hallway that Karkat emerged from.

"Motherfuck, you just scared the shit out of me," Gamzee said, trying to keep his voice down for douche-fuck Eridan, who was most likely sleeping. It rasped out of his throat, filling his ears up and he bit back a laugh.

"Dude, you smoked without me? That's fucking cool I guess, you cock sucker. Not like I let you fucking stab me today or anything." Karkat was already walking into the kitchen, a sleepy grimace on his face.

"Calm down, best friend. I didn't think it would be motherfuckin' kind of me to wake you up and four in the morning to get your smoke on. There's still a bowl for you, I left it on the kitchen table." Karkat grunted in response, and Gamzee grinned when he heard the balcony door slide open. He stared up at the ceiling with lidded eyes, fiddling with the empty bottle in his hands before letting it fall to the floor.

Gamzee was trying to count the threads in the couch cushion, eyebrows pulled together because he couldn't remember where numbers went through his high and his exhaustion and that in itself was an easy way to confuse a motherfucker.

"I don't know if you look worse with the clown makeup or without, shit stick," Karkat said, leaning against the doorway. Gamzee didn't flinch this time, just looked up and grinned.

"Didn't hear you come back in. It's good, right?" Karkat shrugged, pushing off the jamb and walking towards the couch. Gamzee sat up and promptly dropped his head in Karkat's lap, fingers that smelled like weed and copper digging into his hair.

"It's not bad," he said, voice fond and strained in the darkness of the room. Calloused fingertips pressed against Gamzee's scalp, and Gamzee leaned into it.

"You need to start sleeping more, fuck mook," he murmured, rubbing gentle circles against Gamzee's temples. "You've got those ugly fucking rings around your eyes and you're going to start frightening horses at this rate."

"It's a motherfuckin' miracle we live up in a city, bro," Gamzee murmured, bloodshot eyes shutting against the stimulation of Karkat's fingers. "No horses to freak out up here. That'd be awful if there was, though." Gamzee relaxed against Karkat's thighs, the easy smile dug into his cheeks, hollowing out the single dimple in his left cheek.

There was exactly one time of day in which Karkat was affectionate by any stretch of the word, and it was then. Some hidden hour around five in the morning, baked out of his mind and content to touch without the protection of razor sharp words. They sunk into the couch and one another, unafraid of themselves and the world around them.

"How was work?" Karkat ask, voice barely more than a whisper.

"Good." An easy silence, fingers smoothed between coarse black hair. "PB was there again."

"That kid seems to fucking live there," Karkat murmured, shifting a bit before settling back against the couch. "Gonna get his name sometime?" Gamzee thought about the Pretty Boy with his pretty blush, the veins that stood out on thick forearms, the nervous laugh that stuttered from between his wide set mouth.

"I might." Karkat's laugh burst through his mind like a bruise, grey matter darkening from the force of it.

"You probably should. You fucking talk about him enough." Gamzee opened his eyes, eyebrows furrowing.

"I don't fuckin' know what you're on about, but I don't talk about that motherfucker as much as you're implying." Another patronizing laugh.

"Dude, you talk about him enough that you can say an ambiguous fucking code name and I know who you're talking about." Karkat moved Gamzee's head out of his lap and stood up, walking away. "Try to sleep, okay? And get his fucking phone number or something, seriously. This is getting fucking tedious."

Gamzee watched him go, scratching blunt fingernails across his thin chest. He had no idea what the fuck Karkat was going on about; he wasn't the kind of motherfucker to pine over some brother he hadn't even met.

But fuck, he was also right. If Karkat knew who he was fucking talking about by two letters, someone he hadn't even _seen_ before, maybe he did talk too much. It was probably the kind of babble he tended towards when he was drunk and high, the kind where he thought and his mouth forgot to shut itself off. But how often was he thinking about the motherfucker?

Gamzee tried to shake it off, getting off the couch with lethargic movements and stumbling down the dark hallway to his room. He didn't bother turning the lights on; he kicked the door shut behind him, pulled his clothing off until he was collapsing on his mattress in his underwear, worming around until he'd worked the tangle of blankets around his body.

He slept lightly, plagued by lucid dreams of macabre clowns spinning like tops and a Pretty Boy with an uncharacteristically sultry expression, sharp teeth pricking into black lips and a pair of bull horns jutting from his skull. A whirlwind of colours, eyes blinking out from tenebrous shadows, concrete blanketed in shattered glass.

Gamzee opened his eyes for good at eight o'clock, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He laid back against the mattress and groaned, trying to blink himself into a fully functional state. When it was clear that that wasn't going to happen, he unwound his skinny body from the covers and stood up, heading straight for the bathroom.

The hot water felt fucking wonderful beating against his head, against the stringy muscles in his shoulders. He washed the smell of smoke and grime from the previous day out of his hair, sloughing it off his skin and letting it swirl down the drain like a forgotten memory.

He turned the hot water off before he could use it up, toweling himself off and stepping out of the shower with still dripping hair. He wiped steam from the mirror with his hands, looked at himself in the brightness of the bathroom. He took in his atrophied figure, ribs visible beneath his olive skin and hipbones sharp enough to draw blood. He scratched the damp line of hair on his stomach, frowning at himself before grabbing his toothbrush. He brushed the stagnant taste of sleep off of his tongue, combed his hair out and squeezed the water out until it stopped dripping.

A quick trip back to his room and a pair of baggy sweatpants later found Gamzee in the kitchen, quickly remembering why it was a shitty idea to cook bacon shirtless. He flinched as another splatter of hot grease hit his chest, too engrossed in cooking to find a shirt. He chopped vegetables as the bacon fried, silently praising the aides for bringing them groceries that he was turning into delicious motherfucking food. He grated cheese and cracked eggs until there was a massive omelette cooking in the electric fry pan. He left the dishes to cool in the sink, content to watch his masterpiece slowly bubble and solidify. The heavy smell of bacon grease hung in the air, laying across his skin and clogging his pores.

He turned the frying pan off when he deemed his meal ready, cutting a massive chunk out and putting it on his plate in a steaming pile. He covered the rest with the lid and walked out of the kitchen with the plate and a bottle of orange Faygo in hand, sitting cross legged on the couch and shoveling food into his mouth. He turned on the television and watched mindless children's cartoons, grinning around his omelette.

"Can you turn that shit off? It's gonna rot your brain faster than your fucking Faygo, dude." Gamzee turned and grinned at Karkat's back as he walked into the kitchen, heading straight for the electric fry pan on the counter. He muted the sound and set his empty plate on the floor.

"Ain't nothing wrong with a little morning cartoon watching, motherfucker." He watched Karkat load up a plate of omelette, walking into the living room and giving the muted television a disgusted sneer.

"You're watching fucking children's television, dick sneeze." He flopped down on the couch beside him, grabbing the remote from where it was jutting out from under Gamzee's thigh.

"So? It's bright and colourful and it keeps my motherfuckin' attention up in here, bro. You have no fuckin' jurisdiction over my television programs when you're goddamn asleep." Karkat flipped through the channels, settling on a re-run of a terrible soap opera complete with shitty lighting and overly dramatic music.

"Really, dude? You change the channel from ponies and rainbows and shit to badly written fuckin' drama? Not chill, dude. I'll motherfuckin' remember that." Karkat didn't even look at him, chewing on mouthfuls of omelette with his eyes glued to the screen.

"Fuck off, shit shovel. This was quality programming in it's time." Gamzee rolled his eyes and took a swig of his beverage, making himself comfortable against the cushions as Karkat slowly got himself worked up over whatever over-dramatized bullshit was unfolding on the screen.

"How's your ear feel, best fuckin' friend?" Gamzee asked, pointedly ignoring the television program. Karkat grunted through his mouthful, swallowing hard before turning to face him.

"It feels like some fucking psychopath stabbed me with a stainless steel fucking needle," Karkat deadpanned, immediately turning back to the television.

"Calm your shit, dude. You could have told a motherfucker no, but you went along with it. And I made breakfast up in here, so that should make it better." Karkat huffed, shifting against the back of the couch and slumping down.

"I guess it's pretty good." Which, in Karkat speak, meant it was pretty motherfuckin' glorious. Gamzee zoned out for another few minutes before craning his neck to look in the kitchen from his perch on the couch. He squinted to make out the time on the stovetop clock. Sighing, he stood up and stretched his skinny body out. He walked out of the living room without another word, leaving Karkat staring at the television.

Gamzee squinted as he turned the bathroom light on. He leaned in closer to the mirror, wrinkling his nose. Still damp hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He pulled his face paint out from under the sink, smearing white across his jaw. A white base, grey smears across his mouth and eyes. His smile widened. Obsidian eyes stared out from a achromatic mask, shaggy curls messy around his face.

He'd have to wash the paint off in less than twelve hours, but he didn't mind. He wondered what PB would think if he saw Gamzee's face paint. Maybe he'd clam up even further, refusing to look at a motherfucker. Maybe it would draw him in, catch his interest to the point he might even talk to him.

Maybe maybe maybe.

Gamzee tried to ignore his speculations. He went into his room, pulled a t-shirt over his head and yanked a pair of jeans up his thin legs. He had time to waste before heading to the parlor. He padded back down the hallway, Karkat still stuck in front of the television. He looked like he'd sunk into the couch cushions, but Gamzee looked into the kitchen and saw that his mess had been cleaned up and the left overs put away.

"Thanks for cleaning up in here, bro," Gamzee said, shoving his feet into his purple converse.

"Yeah, whatever. You going to shove holes in people again?" Karkat didn't take his eyes off the television as he spoke.

"You know it, motherfucker. I might come home before my shift at the library to get my eat on, but if not I'll see you after. Later, bro!" Karkat gave an aborted wave before Gamzee shut the door, forcing his arms through the sleeves of his sweater.

It was a quick walk to the parlor. He walked in through the back door, immediately heading to the piercing station. He hung his sweater up, washed his hands and tugged a pair of black gloves on. He pulled the tools out of the Ultrasonic, packaging them in sterile blue pouches before placing them in neat piles inside the autoclave.

"Hey, you're already here." Gamzee turned towards Aradia's voice, shutting the door of the autoclave and turning it to bake.

"Yeah, sis. Everything's ready to go." She smiled before nodding her head towards the front door.

"Want to do an eyebrow piercing, dude? Guy just walked in, he's filling out the paperwork." Gamzee's permanent grin widened as he nodded, clapping a hand down on Aradia's shoulder and heading up to the front desk.


	2. Takin' Pills And Runnin' With The Steam

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gamzee or Karkat or Homestuck, as I'm not nearly as fly as Andrew Hussie. However, I do own the hours spent writing and researching this monstrosity.

**Pairings**: Gamzee/Tavros main. Various other pairings to float around in the background.

**Warnings:** Blatant fluff and adorableness, boy/boy situations, future boy/girl and girl/girl situations, recreational drug use and references to stoner culture, serious psychological illnesses, abuse of multitudes of cliches, mediocre to awful rap battles, filthy language, varying creativity of insults, Gamzee cooking, Karkat being a little bitch, Gamzee's obsession with clowns, and darker themes to be added in time.

**Summary:** Gamzee's life revolves around his spit fire of a roommate, stabbing people full of holes, and a boy who lives in the stacks of the library. Unfortunately, he's also tied to a bottle of pills that sits so unassumingly in his bathroom cabinet.

**Author would like you to note:** Specifically to the anon that asked and I couldn't answer because of the whole anonymous thing: No, Tavros doesn't actually live in the library. He just spends all of his time there, studying and whatnot, and that's where Gamzee always sees him. I would also like to apologize for how late this it; the chapter itself has been more or less finished for a week, but I'm traveling and I have little internet access. A second apology needs to be issued for the fact that this chapter is a filler. However, you'll be happy to know that the next chapter is decidedly not a filler, and I'm about 1k into it already. Also, a massive thank you to everyone who's favorited and alerted this story. I love you so fucking hard that it hurts. Chapter title from Please Turn - Little Dragon.

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Gamzee's face felt dry from using the harsh soap in the bathroom again. He rubbed a hand across his chin, giving himself another reminder that he really needed to fucking shave. He smelled motherfucking pink; that was the only way to describe the way public bathroom soap smelled. Fucking pink.

He also had a series of paper cuts across his hands. They'd resulted from an incident with a leaning tower of documents and some pissed fucking sister shoving past him. The web between his thumb and forefinger was still bleeding. Stacking papers was decidedly not what Gamzee had wanted to do for the entirety of the evening.

Not only that, but the mess had put a massive fucking kink in the lazy Operation Talk to Pretty Boy. He'd been looking down the stacks and watching the doors for his entrance before a sudden explosion of papers. The girl who'd been on the afternoon shift had painstakingly sorted them alphabetically and emphatically told Gamzee that she would finish with them when she came back in and not to worry about it. It took four hours to re-sort them between helping students search for novels and reference books. He could say one thing for six-thousand-pick-up: it made a shift fuckin' fly by.

Gamzee wasn't the type to get angry, but he was pretty sure that if he saw the sister who'd so eagerly shoved him out of her way and into the desk, he'd be less than hospitable. There might even be a few choice insults jettisoning across the airspace between them.

As it was, he was sitting at the desk in a bubble of suffocating silence. He nursed his wounds with blotchy tissue papers and tried to stem the blood. It was looking as if he'd need a bandage or two when he got home. Maybe Karkat would play Ms. Nurse with him. Gamzee bit the inside of his cheek, fighting back a grin as he imagined a disgruntled Karkat wrapping his hands and begrudgingly handing him a lollipop. Of course Nurse Karkat would be outfitted in white PVC, heeled thigh highs and a cap nestled into shaggy hair. Gamzee made a mental note to doodle it up and slap it on the fridge with a magnet.

The evening was winding down. The pretty motherfucker was nowhere to be seen. Gamzee sighed, cursing his luck. The one fucking time he made a concrete decision and the kid wasn't in the motherfuckin' vicinity.

He leaned back in the chair, head tipped back. His feet were hooked under a bar under the desk in case the wheels decided to try something funny. He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling. He scratched his thigh through his jeans. He forced out another bored sigh. He wondered if he could die from the monotonous pull of boredom. He wanted a cigarette and a couple joints and his sketchbook. Maybe he'd set up some flashy, colourful cartoons as background noise. He was sure Karkat would blow his motherfuckin' think pan over it.

It was nearing two thirty in the morning and the library had more or less cleared out. He stood up, yawning and stretching himself out. He walked out from behind the desk, readying things for closing up in his boredom.

He padded down the center aisle of the stacks, chewing on the inside of his cheek with lazy, half shut eyes. There were a few kids still diligently working, scattered at different tables like autonomous states; their territory was marked out with scattered loose leaf and bloodshot glares.

He glanced down an aisle and saw a familiar form slumped on top of a table. Gamzee stopped, his grin widening as he watched his back rise and fall with the push of oxygen in his thoracic cavity. He hesitantly moved away, going to lock up the emptied study rooms and turn off the lights in the labyrinth of hallways at the back of the library.

When he was finished, PB was still sleeping against the table. He could hear the security guards rousing people out of the library, forcing them out for closing time. Gamzee walked up to him.

"Hey, motherfucker," he murmured quietly, placing a thin hand on PB's broad shoulder. The kid didn't even budge, breathing even and mohawk squished into the crook of his elbow.

"Hey, dude, you need to fuckin' wake up. We're closing up in here." Gamzee's voice was still soft, jostling PB with a gentle movement of his hand. He groaned a bit, shifting and burying his face against his arm. Gamzee's grin turned into a full fledged fucking smile; no motherfucker had any right being that goddamn adorable. When he finally woke up enough to realize what was going on, he jumped. Alarmed hazel-green eyes met Gamzee's black optics and he laughed a bit.

"Calm down, motherfucker. You just took an impromptu nap up in here. No reason to panic, bro."

"W-what?" he asked, eyebrows gently furrowing as he tried to figure out what was going on through his sleepy haze.

"We're closing up, dude, it's nearly three." Gamzee watched the gears click and whir behind glassy eyes. The kid's eyelashes were so long they nearly brushed his eyebrows.

"Oh! Uh, s-sorry about, uh, about that. I didn't mean t-to, uh, fall asleep." His stutter seemed stronger when he was barely awake. Gamzee wanted to ruffle the kid's hair and tease him until his cheeks flushed.

"No problem, bro. If a motherfucker needs to take a nap, he should take a goddamn nap." PB started gathering up his papers and textbooks, shoving them into his worn backpack.

"You're here like, every motherfuckin' night, bro. Do you have a huge fuckin' course load or some shit?" PB's head snapped up like he wasn't used to people talking to him, as if he kept human interaction to a minimum.

"Well I'm, um, in engineering. I t-take a lot of, uh, really hard classes and stuff." Gamzee couldn't help but notice the way his mouth never seemed to shut, full lips slightly parted.

"Say no more, motherfucker. I know you engineering types. Veritable fuckin' masochists, if you ask me." The kid gave Gamzee a smile, a stuttering laugh. The panic softened from eyes that were lighter than his skin tone demanded; green eyes, hazel eyes, motherfucking bright eyes. He wanted to watch until those eyes had softened further, until the guarded fucking fortresses fell, parapets tumbling to the ground in a resounding clatter.

Gamzee realized that Karkat was right: he was absolutely fucking obsessed with some kid he referred to as fucking PB.

"You, um, you work here, then?" he asked, eyes flickering from shoving things into his bag and back to Gamzee's face. Fuck, those eyelashes. One single human being shouldn't have those kind of eyes paired with those kind of eyelashes.

"Yeah, bro. Three years now, five night shifts a week." The kid's eyes widened.

"Really? I've never really, uh, noticed you, I guess." Gamzee had to force himself not to let the disappointment show on his face.

"Whatever, bro. I'm just the motherfucker behind the desk, y'know? You've got more important shit to worry about, like quantum mechanics and calculus and whatever else you masochists do." PB hoisted his bag over his shoulder, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair.

"Still, I'm pretty certain that it's, uh, a shitty thing to do. Especially when I'm, um, here so often." He adjusted the bag slung across his back and held out a one of his big, graceful hands. "I'm Tavros." Gamzee's grin nearly split his face when he took Tavros' hand, their arms awkward between them as they walked to the front entrance. The warmth of his skin didn't pass Gamzee's notice, nor the firm grip.

"Gamzee, motherfucker. Don't up and forget it, now. I'll test you the next time you need help finding something hiding up on a shelf." Tavros' sleepy eyes lit up, eyes unbearably bright, lips opening wider.

"Oh! That's right, you were, uh, the guy that helped me, yesterday." Gamzee nodded.

"Yeah, that was me." They'd reached the front of the library, other students slowly shuffling out of the doors. "Have a nice night, Tavros, it was nice to motherfuckin' meet you." His name rolled out of Gamzee's mouth, the Spanish 'r' trilling off his tongue.

"Yeah, um, see you tomorrow?" Tavros had swung his bag off and laid it on the desk, arms stretched up to pull his sweater over his head. Gamzee had to bite the inside of his cheek.

"Nah, bro, not tomorrow. I'll be here the next night, though."

"Okay," Tavros said, voice muffled in the brown fabric until he forced his head through the neck. "See you, uh, then. Bye." Tavros hefted his bag over his shoulder and walked out of the library without a backwards glance. It was for the best, really; Gamzee's face had been split by the silliest motherfucking grin on the face of the miraculous Earth.

"His name's Tavros," Gamzee said, sitting beside Karkat on the balcony. He was slouched back in one of the canvas chairs, the bong in his lap and a lighter between limp fingers. Karkat looked over at him with bloodshot eyes, squinting at Gamzee's figure obscured by the light from the kitchen.

"What the fuck are you going on about, fuck mook?" Karkat asked, voice quiet and sleepy. The bong was passed to Gamzee's hands, who took a moment to repack the bowl.

"PB. His name's Tavros." The lighter sparked despite the paper cut pad of his thumb protesting, and Gamzee wrapped his lips around the mouth of the bong, sucking thick smoke into his lungs and pulling the bowl.

"That is a fucking ridiculous name." Karkat was almost slurring, well and fucking baked.

"Hey now, best friend. Karkat and Gamzee aren't exactly popular in the baby naming book, either." He exhaled slowly as he spoke. "Fuck, bro, when was the last time you changed the motherfuckin' H₂O in this bitch?" Instead of getting up to change the water, he took another long toke.

"So what are you going to do about it? You got his goofy fucking name. Are you going to ask him on a date? Gonna ask to suck his cock or something?" Karkat's head had fallen back against the back of the chair, eyes shut and shoulders uncharacteristically loose.

"Well aren't you motherfuckin' belligerent tonight," Gamzee said through the exhale of heavy, earthy smoke.

"I'm just asking, man. I don't know how this shit works between two dudes. The proverbial mating dance has to change, doesn't it? A little flamboyant fuckery for the twinks?"

"Not that motherfuckin' much, dude. And I don't know. I don't want to just get sexual with him. I don't even fucking know what I want up in here, you know?" Karkat's head rolled to face him, one eyebrow raised high on his pale forehead.

"Are you fucking telling me that you'd push him off if he put his hands down your jeans?" Gamzee rolled his eyes as he held the smoke in his lungs, letting alveoli pull weed into his bloodstream.

"I don't motherfuckin' know, brother. I do know that just because we're both guys doesn't mean that we're just looking for nothing but a few miracles. He's fuckin' attractive, that's obvious, but maybe I just want another guy to kick around with." Karkat's laugh was more of a wheeze. Gamzee took another long toke, trying to suck the last of the THC from his burnt out bowl.

"That's fucking hilarious, Gamzee. I know you. I know how you work. You don't obsess over people you want to be fucking friends with, and you don't aggressively chase people looking for a fulfilling bout of goddamn friendship. You are genuinely fucking interested in this guy, and nothing you say is going to convince me otherwise." Gamzee furrowed his brows.

"Dude, I'm not looking for a motherfuckin' fuck buddy."

"And I didn't say you were," Karkat said, interrupting. "You can be friends and have bro time or whatever it is you shit heads do; the difference is that you want it at the same time that you're boning him. Don't try to tell me that your intentions are unicorn fucking pure, Gamz, because they aren't." Gamzee set the bong on the floor of the balcony. The chair creaked as he slouched down, legs out in front of him and long fingers folded across his stomach.

"I know more about you than _you_ know about you, Gamzee. And I'm going to tell you right the bleeding fuck now that you like this kid. You're popping a spectacular chode over him and you're a drippy romantic; it translates into yearning for a sticky sweet relationship, sex and fucking all. It doesn't mean you can't be friends; I honestly don't understand how you could pursue a relationship _without_ being friends. I'm telling you that friendship isn't all you want." Gamzee sat back, trying to think about it.

They fell into an easy silence as Gamzee thought about chilled out evenings; pizza boxes scattered around the living room and laying back on the couch, button mashing the controller in his hands. It would be an easy competition; too full to summon any real drive to win. He'd pause the game, drop the controller on the ground and lean across the couch, kiss his warm skin and feel his heart beat beneath his hand. Tavros would laugh, wrap an arm around his waist and press his full mouth against Gamzee's and-

Gamzee found that Karkat was right far too often when it came to his romantic inclinations, and told him that it was a downright motherfucking creepy how much he noticed.

"You're just fucking clueless, dude. You're literally fucking clueless and it's up to me to tell you about all of the things you want." Gamzee wasn't going to argue with that.

They went inside, Karkat stumbling over the door jamb and nearly falling face first into the kitchen table. Gamzee set the bowl on top of the microwave, dumped the stagnant water into the sink and rinsed it out. His stomach rumbled and suddenly Gamzee was fucking ravenous; the munchies combined with not eating for ten hours left him with an almost crippling bout of hunger.

There was food in the fridge. That much he knew; the aides had went shopping and god fucking willing his roommates hadn't eaten a week's worth of fresh groceries in a day. He opened the fridge and pulled out a block of cheese, half a jar of jalapenos, sour cream and salsa. There were corn chips in the cupboard, a tomato and some chives in the crisper. Twenty minutes later had Gamzee sitting in front of a heaping mountain of cheese nachos, a sleepy Karkat digging in over his shoulder.

"How do you cook so well? You're a clueless fucking stoner, how is this culinary level even possible?" Karkat asked around a mouthful of melted cheese and corn chips.

"I dunno man, it's just a motherfucking miracle," Gamzee answered, grinning as Karkat snorted. He licked the salt from the chips out of his paper cuts. They ate in relative silence, broken by the quiet moaning emanating from Eridan's room.

"Is that why you were up and out on the balcony, brother?" Gamzee asked, nodding toward the wall. Karkat's expression was pulled downward in disgust.

"Yeah, fucking asshole's been at it all night. They stumbled in here at eleven and they haven't stopped since. It's like the Gestapo's patrolling the streets and this is their last goddamn night together or something," Karkat said, taking a few chips laden with sour cream as a very loud, very feminine wail shattered the quiet completely. Gamzee's bloodshot eyes widened, catching Karkat's irritated glare.

"Man, Fef ain't usually so motherfuckin' vocal," Gamzee said quietly, referring to their roommate's girlfriend.

"Tonight's a fucking exception, apparently. They've gotten fucking _quiet_ compared to earlier, it's ridiculous." The moaning kept up as they ate, shoveling nachos into their mouths. Gamzee planned on retreating into his bedroom and attempting to block out the noise with earbuds and a pillow over his head.

"There's no motherfuckin' way that they've been making miracles this vigorously since eleven, brother. It's almost five in the morning."

"Gamz, they have _definitely _been fucking for six goddamn hours. They're like energy efficient machines, except they're fucking louder."

"They're going to have to up and exhaust themselves soon. Are they rolling or something?"

"Fuck if I know, man. They better be, it'd give them a fucking excuse."

"Man, three years and they've never been loud like this. Fef's way too classy. D'you think they're loud like this when they're at her place?" There was a fast crescendo, long moaning in tandem, a few dull thumps from the headboard hitting the wall, and silence.

"Is that the end of it? Can I go to fucking sleep now?" Karkat asked, too loudly to be asking a rhetorical question. Gamzee imagined Feferi's face burning in embarrassment.

"Don't forget we have a group session tomorrow, man," Gamzee called after Karkat, hearing the door to his bedroom slam.

Gamzee's room was dark when he entered it, the taste of chalk and arsenic heavy on the back of his tongue from two crucial white pills. He bid a quiet, grinning goodnight to the clowns he'd painted dancing across his bedroom walls.

The clowns turned their heads and smiled back.

"Gamzee, can I talk to you?" Aradia's voice was quiet, but it carried across the room. Gamzee was cleaning up from a naval piercing on a teeny bopper. The air stunk from the acrid chemicals, the faux leather of the piercing bench still damp from the cleaner.

"Yeah, sis, what do you need up in here?" Gamzee dropped the tools in the Cidex, pulling black rubber gloves from his long fingers. Aradia gestured to the chair next to her, indicating that he should sit down. She'd stopped studying; a sign that meant serious fucking business.

"So I'm going to be graduating with my Masters in April," Aradia said, her voice as calm and even as always. "I've been exploring my employment options, and given my marks remain constant until graduation-"

"And you're pretty much motherfuckin' guaranteed of that," Gamzee said, grinning. Aradia offered a small smile, eyes bright with excitement.

"They've offered me a position as a tour guide at the Met. They've told me there's a good chance of a promotion to assistant curator, from my grades and reference letters." Gamzee's smile lit up his whole face, his dimples dark in the face paint.

"Girl, that is motherfuckin' _miraculous_. The Met, like in New York? That's motherfuckin' massive, Ray, what an amazing fuckin' opportunity. You're going to take it, right? It would be a motherfuckin' waste not to."

"Yes. I've been conditionally accepted already." Gamzee offered his knuckles, grinning as she smiled and bumped her own against them.

"So who's going to come and cover you as head piercer here, sis? What motherfucker am I going to be working with?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I've already talked to Travis, and we want you to fill the position." Gamzee blanched. Aradia's smile widened infinitesimally.

"Essentially, starting tomorrow you'll be doing piercings unsupervised. I'll be here if you need help, but you'll be doing them on your own from now on. From May fifth I'll be gone and you'll be Skin Head's piercer." Gamzee stared at her, face paint twisting his expression into a perpetual smile.

"Are you motherfuckin' serious up in here, sis?" Gamzee asked. Two years of apprenticeship and suddenly he was in line to be the only piercer on staff. A full time job working at the parlor. He didn't know if he was excited or if he felt nauseous. A sudden boost in responsibility, a step closer to having a semblance of a normal life.

But if he stopped working at the library, how would he keep up correspondence with PB?

Gamzee grinned regardless.

"Well Jesus motherfuckin' Christ, Ray. I hope you're not up and being sassy with me or something, because this is bitchtits fuckin' sweet." Aradia opened up a textbook, flipping to a dog eared page and pulling out an orange highlighter.

"You've earned it." Gamzee beamed as Aradia flipped her concentration from him to the textbook. "Now go babysit some undergrads."

"Nah, sis, I'm not working tonight. It's Wednesday, got a group session at the mother ship." Aradia nodded as she read.

"Right, I'd forgotten. Good luck with that."

"Thanks, sis. I'm finished cleaning, I'll see you up in here tomorrow."

"Ten sharp."

"I'll be motherfuckin' waiting for you to unlock the door."

Gamzee and Karkat sauntered into the institution five minutes before their session, determined to seem like productive members of society so they could stay in assisted living. Gamzee still had a bit of a bounce in his step, face paint smudged at his temple. Karkat was walking like he was heading towards the gallows.

"Chin up, best friend. All we have to do is sit motherfuckin' pretty for an hour and speak when spoken to." Karkat glared over at him.

"That's easy for you to say, shit stick. I got shit for sleep and I'm not in the fucking mood to be patronized." Gamzee stiffened.

"Dude, don't bring it up in the group session. If you want to talk to Eridan about it, motherfuckin' talk to him at home. I don't want to up and have our living arrangements compromised because of a few rowdy rounds of sex." Karkat's mouth twisted downwards and Gamzee nudged him with his elbow. "Seriously, bro. Don't fuck this up just because you're pissed off. It was one time, okay? We'll talk to Eridan later tonight."

"Yeah, what the fuck ever. I won't fucking say anything." They wandered into the half full room. Karkat immediately bee lined for the coffee and Gamzee went to sit in one of the chairs arranged in a circle. He slouched down, legs comfortably spread in front of him.

Karkat dropped himself into the chair at Gamzee's right, shoving a black coffee into Gamzee's hands and sucking back his own coffee, choked with sugar and milk.

"The brew here tastes like burnt ass hair," Karkat murmured, drinking it anyways. Gamzee took a careful sip and made a face.

"This is motherfuckin' rank, man. Worse than normal. This is the fuckin' antithesis of a miracle, I'll tell you that for motherfuckin' free." The group leader, a middle aged man with a spreading bald spot and a thickening waistline, walked into the room with a faded smile.

Anyone still standing sat, a circle of bored faces awaiting their fates. A few people rushed in at the last moment, Eridan among them in pressed slacks and a pastel polo. He sat on Gamzee's left, pushing his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose and flashing a smile that could have doubled as a smirk. Gamzee felt Karkat stiffen at his right. Gamzee's hand fell to Karkat's knee, giving him a gentle squeeze.

The group leader called for quiet around the room, though there was no need to considering how quiet everyone already was. He quickly introduced himself, as per usual, and rambled on about his credentials, as per usual. Gamzee and Karkat exchanged a few unimpressed glances, as per usual.

"Would anyone like to tell us about their progress or their setbacks this week?" The question that always went unanswered, until the inevitable suggestion to go clockwise around the circle.

They listened to a girl crying about reverting back to cocaine after losing her job, a dude who'd stopped taking his meds and drowned his guinea pig, a girl who'd felt stronger and more confident than ever after having her dosage tweaked. Gamzee imagined the psychologists behind the one way glass, scribbling across their clipboards and taking independent living privileges away from the people who'd fucked up.

"My name's Karkat, I'm twenty three, and I have antisocial personality disorder." Karkat spent exactly three minutes and twenty six seconds recounting his boring week and the number of times he'd bitten his tongue to keep up a polite facade. Gamzee took a deep breath as Karkat passed the proverbial torch.

"I'm Gamzee, I'm twenty three years old, and I'm schizophrenic." Gamzee spent his obligatory three minutes talking about his piercing gig and his tedious evenings at the library. The others in the circle made a point to avoid eye contact, looking at the floor. Gamzee was more or less used to it; he was tall and had a face full of white and grey makeup. He was intimidating, even frightening if you didn't know him.

He fell silent and nudged Eridan, who immediately started speaking. Gamzee zoned out for the remainder of the session. Time dragged while the few talkative people kept the session afloat; there was a collective sigh around the room as the clock hands hit six. Karkat stood, nodding towards the door and walking towards the exit.

"Nah, man, gotta get insulin and my motherfuckin' blood work. I'll be home in an hour or something, brother." Karkat was visibly biting his cheek as Eridan joined him on the walk home. Gamzee just hoped that he wouldn't return to one of his roommates splattered across the walls.

There was a plump, cheerful nurse behind the scratched plexiglass window. She smiled at him and pushed a clipboard through the cut out at the bottom of the plexiglass, recognizing his face paint immediately. He thanked her and strolled to one of the worn chairs in the waiting area to fill the same four pages out. He didn't have to think about them anymore; he'd been filling them out since he was eighteen years old, when transitional outpatient treatment was a glittering mirage in the future.

The clipboard scraped against the counter as he pushed it back under the slot, the nurse still smiling. She checked over the paperwork and gave it to another nurse as Gamzee leaned against the wall, waiting. Five minutes later he was called over by a slightly less cheerful nurse. She looked tired; lines creased her face and the area beneath her eyes was dark and puffy. She unlocked the steel door and ushered him to the small room he visited every two weeks.

"Okay, Gamzee, please have a seat," she began, her voice soothing. "Have you been experiencing any symptoms of your hyperglycemia? Any pronounced hunger or thirst?"

"Nah, ma'am, nothing up and out of the ordinary. Weight's steady, too," Gamzee said as he pulled his sweater off and slumped down in the chair.

"Okay, and your file indicates that you're doing well on your meds. Any changes in the side effects, hon?" She was bustling around the room, readying needles. She'd take blood first, offer him a cookie or two, and then stick him with insulin.

"Nah, that's all up and steady, too. Still having trouble sleeping, still getting those motherfuckin' nightmares, still kinda shaky in the finger area if I'm not concentrating." The nurse nodded and pursed her lips as she set up eight containers for the different blood tests. They were all labeled with Gamzee's name and medication information.

"Are you still dealing with a bit of orthostatic hypotension?" Gamzee hummed and nodded.

"Yeah, I've been getting pretty motherfuckin' lightheaded every once in a while. Usually when I'm not up and doing anything, you know? Standing on the subway, sitting on the couch. Nothing too drastic, though, it's just like a wicked motherfuckin' head rush." The nurse nodded and told him that she'd start with taking blood, like he knew she would. He zoned out as she wrapped a piece of rubber around his biceps, though he knew that she'd be able to pick a vein out without the help. She pricked him with the needle, taping it down and pressing the first vial into it. He watched as his blood filled up the small glass capsule. It was always darker than he expected it to be; a dark ruby hue in contrast to the bright vermillion he thought would splash against the glass.

He knew the blood would be so bright splattered across the white tiling his bathroom; it would shine against his olive skin, make it look like fresh cream poured over honey. He tried to stifle his lazy grin.

When she'd taken the blood she asked if he was dizzy at all before offering him a massive cookie and a glass of apple juice. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth Gamzee accepted both. He munched on the cookie while she readied his insulin shot, washing it down with cold apple juice. He felt like he was seven again, imbibing an after school snack instead of having his blood taken to check for side effects from his antipsychotics.

Gamzee left the institution with two small, round bandages on his forearm. The sun was beginning to set behind the clouds and it was getting cold, but Gamzee decided to walk anyway. The assisted living quarters were only a few blocks from the institution; Gamzee could deal with the evening chill for the ten minute walk.

Gamzee walked into their apartment and was greeted by the smell of microwaved ramen. The television was blaring for no one, the living room a ghost town. Gamzee imagined a piece of tumbleweed blowing between the couches and snickered to himself. The kitchen was in a similar state. Gamzee walked down the hallway and let himself into Karkat's room, nodding in greeting. He made himself comfortable on Karkat's bed, tucking his chin against Karkat's shoulder while he slurped up noodles.

"Your ear looks good, man. Keep doing what you're motherfuckin' doing. So did you talk to the motherfucker, or are you up and pouting because you can?"

"Shut the fuck up, ass nugget," Karkat murmured, shoving the fork in the direction of Gamzee's nose. He moved to suck the noodles into his mouth, broth dripping onto Karkat's t-shirt.

"Fef was already here when we got back, and I didn't want to bring it up in front of her." Gamzee nodded, yanking some of the blankets to cover his legs. No matter how much Karkat hated their roommate, his girlfriend was a different story completely. "She brought us fucking cupcakes to apologize. There was no fucking way I could tear into him after that." There was a pause, their bodies completely still.

"Are you motherfuckin' saying that I'm sitting in your bed eating shitty pot noodles when I could be in the kitchen muchin' out on fuckin' cupcakes?" They were still for a moment more before Gamzee kicked the blankets off. They stood in tandem; Karkat left the styrofoam cup on his beside table with the fork sticking up like a white flag.

The box was in the center of the kitchen table, a note written in elegant, looping cursive. An apology, a reminder to Eridan that the cupcakes weren't for his consumption. Gamzee grinned and lifted the pink cardboard lid, revealing twelve perfectly iced cupcakes.

"That woman is a motherfuckin' angel. I don't care which fuckin' based god she was sent from. Look at these motherfuckin' cupcakes; have you ever up and seen anything so perfect?" They were hanging over the box like a new mother hung over the crib of her child.

"These are quite literally the most resplendent delicacies the world has seen. I'm certain that they placed each fucking sprinkle so that they're so aesthetically pleasing that the rich would buy them just to fucking look at them."

"Sugary motherfuckin' decorations for the cash cows."

"Wanna smoke a few bowls and eat the whole box?"

"You motherfuckin' know it, brother.


	3. Don't Let Me Get In My Zone

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gamzee or Karkat or Homestuck, as I'm not nearly as fly as Andrew Hussie. However, I do own the hours spent writing and researching this monstrosity.

**Pairings**: Gamzee/Tavros main. Various other pairings to float around in the background.

**Warnings:** Blatant fluff and adorableness, boy/boy situations, future boy/girl and girl/girl situations, recreational drug use and references to stoner culture, serious psychological illnesses, abuse of multitudes of cliches, mediocre to awful rap battles, filthy language, varying creativity of insults, Gamzee cooking, Karkat being a little bitch, Gamzee's obsession with clowns, and darker themes to be added in time.

**Summary:** Gamzee's life revolves around his spit fire of a roommate, stabbing people full of holes, and a boy who lives in the stacks of the library. Unfortunately, he's also tied to a bottle of pills that sits so unassumingly in his bathroom cabinet.

**Author would like you to note:** I'm supremely sorry for how long this took. I thought I'd have it up before I left Australia, and then the jet lag kicked me in the face and I've spent the last five days sleeping and visiting friends. But here it is, Tavros interaction and all! Again, a huge thank you to all of the people who favorited and altered this story, I want to rub my face all over every single one of you in a feline gesture of my intense love for you all. Chapter title from Niggas In Paris - Jay Z and Kanye West.

Also, **an important note**. Someone commented about marijuana showing up in Gamzee's blood tests, and it was an important enough question that I've decided to share the answer with all of you, lucky buggers. Gamzee's medication has a fatal side effect called blood agranulocytosis, for which he needs to have monthly blood tests to ensure that he hasn't developed it. Because of how well someone with such a serious mental illness is living, working and able to manage his own money and taking all of his meds, the weed is an inconsequential detail. It doesn't affect his medication or his social functioning, so they let it slide. Gotta pick your battles when you're working with seriously mentally ill patients, and Gamzee's recreational drug use is more or less a tiny fault in the bigger picture.

Now on to the chapter!

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Gamzee generally thought that small talk was useless. It was boring; how pathetic was it when two sentient beings had nothing better to speak about than their current moods and the motherfuckin' weather? He did put up with small talk, though. Small talk had a tendency to blossom into a full fledged conversation.

Small talk with Tavros was the kind of small talk that unfurled like foliage in the rainforest. A hushed exchange of pleasantries turned into Tavros sitting on the edge of the desk, into impatient students waiting for Gamzee to pause and see what they needed help with. It turned into Tavros scrambling back to his table in the back of the stacks, racing with due dates and midterm exams. It turned into Gamzee taking strolls to his table in the lulls, doodling and writing rap lyrics in the margins of Tavros' notes and running back to the front desk when he realized how long he'd been away.

Pleasantries turned into Gamzee's growing knowledge of the Pretty fucking Boy. He knew that Tavros was twenty years old, in his third year; he'd attended the college in his hometown before transferring to the much larger university with a huge check in his pocket. He knew that Tavros had his education fully funded by the government because he was First Nations. He'd been raised on a reserve in the North. His father worked the oil patch and his mother was a stay-at-home mom. He had two sisters, one older and one younger, and a little brother.

Gamzee knew that Tavros hated it there. He hated the mentality and the expectations and the monotony of living in an isolated area.

He knew that Tavros rode horses and worked on a ranch throughout high school. He knew that he got top grades so that his funding for university wouldn't run out. He vaguely knew about what Tavros wanted to do after school; some fucking architecture gig that left Gamzee confused as any motherfucker had right to be when Tavros started spouting his engineering bullshit.

The most fucking important thing that Gamzee knew, however, was the fact that he liked Tavros, without the shade of a doubt. With a side of abject obsession. And a dash of sexual tension.

That and Gamzee had his phone number.

"Just fucking call the goddamn bloody number and ask him to hang out, shit muzzle." He also knew that Karkat was growing pretty irritated with his behaviour.

"That," Gamzee said, rolling his food to one side of his mouth so he could speak, "is a new one." They were sitting in the food court a few blocks from their apartment, consuming sushi and fried chicken and ice cream, baked off their faces. Gamzee had his shitty flip phone open, Tavros' contact information shining in the scleras of his bloodshot eyes.

"Button your clown face about the increasingly creative nature of my insults and call that fucking twink right goddamn now."

"How do you know he's a twink, best friend? You've never even seen him."

"Because only a twink would date a skeletal fairy like you, twat spot."

"That's not very motherfuckin' nice, bro. I've been putting weight on over the last few months, and I'm almost in the green for being motherfuckin' healthy."

"Stop changing the subject, you sneaky fucking douche nozzle. Pick that fucking phone up and call the kid right now." It had been eleven days since he'd learned Tavros' name. Nine days since getting his phone number. Less than fifteen hours since Gamzee had last seen him.

And it was Sunday. Sunday signified the one day that Gamzee had off of both jobs; the parlor was closed and the library shut the stacks down early on the Day of Worship. Sundays generally consisted of Gamzee and Karkat waking-and-baking, eating their weight in junk food, and spending the day lazing around playing video games in their underwear.

That Sunday was different. It technically began in the early fucking morning, when Tavros was leaving the library. He'd told Gamzee to call him and they could hang out; though in a round about, stuttering kind of way. Ten in the morning saw Gamzee wide awake and fresh from the shower, staring at his reflection in the mirror and contemplating whether or not to put his face paint on. Moral motherfucking dilemma; he cherished his face paint, used it fucking reverently, but his thoughts were pulling the wicked motherfucking tilt-a-whirl around a certain quiet bro.

He'd ended up slicking on his war paint; Karkat had made a good argument that whether or not he saw Tavros today, the motherfucker would see him in his clown-faced glory eventually. He'd applied it with extra care.

The weed came after he'd made himself up and dressed himself even more carefully than the previous eleven days. They'd smoked the rest of their stash and then, grinning and bloodshot, went on an adventure for some food.

"I can't call him up right now. I'm so motherfuckin' baked that I'll trip all over my words and up and make a right ass of myself." Karkat raised an eyebrow.

"That's no fucking excuse, you useless piece of dog shit. You're desensitized enough that you should be able to smooth talk your way into a candle lit date followed by some fucking hanky panky on the walk home." Gamzee laughed and nearly choked on a piece of salmon nigiri.

"What happens if I get so nervous that I hang up as soon as I call him?" Gamzee asked once he'd coughed the fish out of his trachea, eyes watering.

"I beat you around the head for a while to try and force the stupid out of your skull, and then make you fucking call him again and tell him you want his fucking giblets." Gamzee didn't doubt the sincerity of his words.

"Okay, serious time up in here. I honestly have no idea what to say to the motherfucker. Do I call him up and say 'Hey Tavbro, come hang out with me and my irrate friend at the food court, we're baked out of our minds' or something?" Karkat rolled his eyes and swallowed the chicken he'd been chewing on.

"No, fuck face. Unless that's how gay relationships work. Leave out me, leave out the high thing. I imagine that you'll come down a bit by the time you actually meet. Just say you want to hang out, and if he's free tell him to meet you here." Gamzee nodded gravely, picking his cellphone off of the table. "I can't believe you're actually fucking asking me for advice on this. You are a catastrophe in the human relations department."

"Yes, my motherfuckin' Jedi master. I'll repeat your wisdom word for motherfuckin' word." Karkat threw a fry in his direction, which Gamzee picked off his shoulder and popped into his mouth as he hit a few buttons and raised the phone to his ear.

"It's ringing," Gamzee said, prompting Karkat to roll his eyes again. He half expected the call to go to voicemail when there was a click and Tavros' voice rang through the tinny speaker.

"Hey Tavbro." The easy grin carved its way onto his face and Karkat gagged a bit before shoving sushi into his mouth.

"Hi, Gamzee," Tavros said, his voice still quiet and small, but it seemed immeasurably warmer. "What's up?"

"Nothing too heavy up in here, Tav. Do you want to hang out or something? If you're not up and busy, bro." He looked towards Karkat, who sneered a bit before nodding.

"Oh! I'm just, uh, I'm finishing up this paper right now. Do you want to meet somewhere in an hour? If the offer still stands, in an hour." Gamzee imagined Tavros biting his full bottom lip, rubbing the back of his neck with a big, sinewy hand.

"Yeah, man, that's motherfuckin' cool. Is there somewhere up and convenient for you? Or anything you up and want to do?" Karkat shook his head, mouthing something about being too eager, but Gamzee ignored him as Tavros piped up on the other line.

"Well, I'm pretty certain that, uh, that it's old school rap night at a bar downtown. Tonight, obviously. We could hang out somewhere, maybe, and get some food before going there? If that's okay, uh, with you." Gamzee's grin unfurled, stretching his cheeks until it was painful.

"Yeah, Tav, that sounds a bitchtits brand of motherfuckin' miraculous. Do you want to meet me at the knoll behind the art gallery downtown? We can kick back for a while before grabbing some chow." Karkat's forehead hit the table.

"Okay, yeah. That, um, that sounds really good. I have to race through this paper and I'll, um, I'll meet you there, okay?" Gamzee could hear papers rustling, the tap of fingers on a keyboard.

"For sure, Tavbro. I'll see you in a motherfuckin' hour." Gamzee's grin had turned triumphant as he shut his phone, turning to Karkat.

"Wipe that fucking expression off your face. Not only does the poor kid have to deal with your fucking clown face, he has to wind between the toke circles at the knoll to find you." The smile slowly died on Gamzee's face. "Yeah, cock breath. You fucked that up."

"Shit."

"Can't call him back and change. You don't want to be that asshole."

"Shit. _Shit._"

"I tried to help."

"Shut your lovely motherfuckin' mouth, best friend."

"Don't take this fuck up out on me. I was here trying to help you." Gamzee started pressing grains of rice into puree with a chopstick.

"It shouldn't be that big of a deal, bro. He's been around pot before, it's not like it's going to motherfuckin' scar him or something."

"I goddamn fucking hope so, because I don't want to deal with how pathetic you're going to be for the next six months if he never calls you again." The pile of rice was slowly turning into a puddle of textured mush. A hand covered his, stilling his movements. Atramentous optics trained on washed out blue.

"Gamzee. I'm just being an asshole. He'll call. It'll be okay."

Gamzee continued mucking with the rice.

The grass was strangely soft against the palms of his hands. He rubbed his hands across the stalks, letting them tickle him as he waited. The spring sun was peeking out from between obese clouds. Gamzee hoped that it wouldn't make him sweat and smear his face paint.

The public toke circles were minimal that Sunday afternoon, which made something hard in Gamzee's chest shift so he could breathe easier. Regardless, he sat up and watched the edges of the tiny green space in the middle of downtown. He jumped when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Tavros.

"Hey, um, I'm here. I can't really see you, though." Gamzee whipped his head around.

"I'm just kicked back on the grass, Tavbro. Where are you up and hiding?" He could hear the echoes of the square in the speaker, feedback from Tavros' cell phone.

"I'm, uh, by a fountain. Am I in the right place, or did I take a wrong turn, or something?" Gamzee laughed a bit, waving as he saw Tavros looking around with those wide, bright eyes.

"Yeah, brother, I can see you." When Tavros caught sight of him his smile started a samba in Gamzee's chest. Gamzee flipped his phone shut, Tavros shoving his own in his pocket as he made his way up the incline. He dropped beside Gamzee in the grass with a stuttered greeting, bright eyes not quite meeting Gamzee's own. Curious eyes flicked over charcoal and alabaster paint.

"This is, uh, new," he said, referring to his makeup. Gamzee felt his stomach lurch; this was it.

"Yeah, it's a thing I like to do. The head honchos at the library don't like it when I do it, though."

"Cool." And that was it. No cataclysmic change of heart, no shift in attitude. Tavros laid back beside him with his face tipped toward the sky and that was the last Gamzee heard about it. The shape in his chest shifted again and he breathed in a long puff of air tainted with marijuana and car fumes.

"How did the paper go, bro?" Gamzee asked, admiring the way the light hit Tavros' skin. Tavros pulled a face before pointing a sheepish grin in Gamzee's direction.

"It was, uh, pretty god awful. It was a biology paper about salt water snails." Gamzee's expression slid off his face, eyebrow raised.

"You're motherfuckin' kidding me. What's an engineering kid doing up in a marine biology class?"

"It's a requirement. I need a science credit, but outside of my program. So physics and chemistry sadly don't count." Gamzee shook his head, a grin fighting back onto his face.

"You engineers and your motherfuckin' masochism. Can you at least drink like the legend up and motherfuckin' holds?" Tavros laughed quietly, laying back and propping his head up on his folded arms.

"I guess you might find out tonight, maybe." Gamzee's eyes widened and he spluttered a bit, unsure of what to say. Tavros laughed again.

"I don't usually drink with the engineers. I drink with my roommate and his friends, mostly. They go out like, two or three times a week. I go, um, every once in a while. If only to keep up my tolerance up." Gamzee's grin had turned incredulous.

"Are you up and being serious, Tav? I never would have pegged you as a motherfucker who drank all the time."

"N-not, um, all the time. Only c-casual drinks with, uh, with friends. I don't like to get out of hand." Something about the way he shifted, or the edge in his eyes, made Gamzee drop it; he was clearly uncomfortable with the subject.

"I'm up and teasing, Tavbro. Sorry."

"I know." They sat in a blatantly awkward silence, Gamzee scrambling for something else to talk about.

"So were you at the library today?" Gamzee asked, fighting for control of his limbs so he wouldn't punch himself in spine repeatedly until he was laying crippled on the grass for asking such a stupid question. Tavros, however, turned his head and smiled.

"Why would I want to be at the library when you're not there?" Gamzee caught smiling, bright eyes with his own. He couldn't tell if Tavros was being serious or not.

"I was just, uh, in my room. My roommate was out with his girlfriend, so it was pretty much silent. I might have mooched his printer, too." Gamzee laughed and reached out to punch Tavros' solid shoulder, the report making Gamzee wobble on his side.

"Look at this rebellious motherfucker. Did you up and drink his milk, too?" Gamzee teased, grinning. Tavros tilted his head back and laughed, the sound shivering down Gamzee's spine.

"Definitely. I used his, uh, his toothbrush to clean the bathroom, too."

"That is motherfuckin' rank, bro."

"What can I say? I'm just a dick."

"Totally. I'm up and fuckin' disgusted." Tavros' laughter was still hitched with his vague stutter, but the hesitation had dissipated over the eleven days they'd been corresponding.

"In all honesty, I don't do much other than steal his printer. And flip through his rap albums, because they're strict as, uh, as Hell."

"Hell would be pretty motherfuckin' strict, bro."

"Right? But don't say anything, okay? If Dave knew I was into his turn table stuff I'm, uh, pretty certain he'd lynch me."

"Who would I up and tell, Tavbro? My roommates? Karkat would sass me to the ends of the earth over how few little he cared. Don't worry, your secret is motherfuckin' safe with me."

Gamzee didn't get to add much to his growing knowledge of Tavros that afternoon, but they were laid out on the grass in the sun and Tavros didn't care about the face paint or the weed and that was fucking fine by him. Tavros complained about finals, which were starting within a few weeks, and Gamzee comforted him with the knowledge that he'd blow the exams out of the water on account of how much the kid studied.

The sun was beginning to dip under the edges of skyscrapers by the time Gamzee's stomach started rumbling. The sounds pulled them from their conversation, Tavros looking a bit confused until Gamzee explained with a nod directed at his stomach. Tavros teased him, grinning and looking up at him from under long eyelashes. Gamzee had never been more grateful to his face paint for hiding his blush. He stood up and pulled Tavros up with him, tugging him towards dinner.

They ducked into the nearest fast food joint, on account of it being cheap and more or less pretty tasty. Gamzee loaded up on double cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets and french fries, carrying the full plastic tray to sit across the table from Tavros. Tavros raised an eyebrow at the amount of food Gamzee had bought before stealing a few of his fries.

"Man, this is my jam," Tavros said, his mouth full of deep fried potato, referring to the radio that could barely be heard over stoners and yuppies ordering artery clogging meals.

"What is it?" Gamzee asked, straining to catch the melody.

"Ball so hard motherfuckers wanna fine me, but first niggas gotta find me," Tavros started, stutter misplaced as he spit the first few verses of Niggas in Paris. He was grinning and gesturing with one of his chicken nuggets while Gamzee's eyebrows rose higher and higher on his forehead.

"I don't even know what that means," Gamzee interjected at the appropriate time, and Tavros full out beamed.

"No one knows what it means, but it's _provocative._"

"No it's not, it-"

"It gets the people going!"

"So, essentially," Gamzee said, interrupting before Tavros could get back into the rap, picking a chicken nugget off of his tray and kneeling down on the dirty tile beside their table. "I'm going to ask you, Tavros motherfuckin' Nitram, if you will up and take my hand in miraculous fuckin' marriage." Gamzee offered the chicken nugget up to him in the palm of his hand, the ever present grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Tavros' smile didn't falter once, eyes glittering with mirth. Gamzee's breath caught, rattling in his chest. They abjectly ignored the people who were looking in their direction.

"I've, uh, never been able to say no to a proposition of marriage. Or a chicken nugget," he said, taking the processed meat out of Gamzee's hand and dropping it in his flimsy container of sauce. "So I do, Gamzee Makara. We'll wed in glorious rap-matrimony, under a canopy of palm trees in the tropics. Or something." Gamzee got up off the floor and slid back into his seat, emphasizing the sense of elation bubbling up his esophagus.

"Oh Tavbro, you romantic. You'll have to wait until our marriage night to up and have me; I'm motherfuckin' waiting for marriage." Tavros raised an eyebrow, the edge of a smirk creeping into his smile.

"We're getting married right now. We're going to seal the deal, uh, by eating this chicken nugget." Tavros picked it out of the sauce, biting it in half and giving the other half to Gamzee.

"And with this delicious chicken nugget, I thee wed." Gamzee leaned forward and ate it off of Tavros' fingers, his lips brushing Tavros' skin.

"Marriage tastes motherfuckin' miraculous." Tavros pulled his hand back, licking the sauce from his fingers. Gamzee felt his face heat up.

"It does taste pretty great. This is going to be a wonderful marriage. I'm looking forward to the, um, the consummation." Gamzee blanched for a moment before grinning.

"Tav, you dog," he said. He wanted to rub his hand over his chest, see if he could feel the palpitations of his heart through bone and muscle. Surely Tavros could hear it; the blood was rushing in his ears and he could feel his pulse throbbing in his mouth, in the tips of his fingers, in the hollows behind his knees.

"Is this gonna be up and like a Mennonite wedding, where we're just getting motherfuckin' hitched for the sex?" Gamzee asked, teasing him with a wicked smirk and a burning flush beneath his face paint. Tavros laughs.

"Of c-course not. We're getting hitched for the stern beats. The, uh, the intercourse is, um, an abused extra privilege." Tavros blushed as he said it, dropping his eyes and dipping another hunk of deep fried chicken in his sauce. Gamzee was worried that he was going to vomit; there were butterflies in his stomach that were quickly turning into ravens.

"Abused, huh?" Gamzee leaned back and popped a few fries in his mouth. "Planning on having me up and between the sheets often?" Tavros looked up at him from beneath his eyelashes, still blushing. The grin on his face was contagious; it contracted on Gamzee's face, deepening his dimple under grey makeup.

"At least until the honeymoon stage fades. We'll be able to focus on the insane raps better after that, when we can control ourselves." It was a joke. Gamzee had to tell himself over and over, used it to convince himself not to lean over the table and taste barbeque sauce off of Tavros' tongue.

"The maddest bombs that have ever been dropped on the miraculous earth," Gamzee said, relaxing into their banter. He unwrapped a cheeseburger as Tavros stumbled over how sick their raps would be.

"I'd, uh, turn those bitches up to pretty stern, set the beats to lecture, and go hog wild on the curmudgeon knob." Gamzee nearly choked on greasy bread and meat, washing it down with a shot of Faygo before he dropped dead in the middle of the restaurant.

"God damn, that sounds so motherfuckin' fresh," Gamzee said, laughing. "Cue up those beats, brother."

More people were staring, trying to figure out what fresh hell had been unleashed in their corner. Stoners were giggling and leaning forward to hear more. Yuppies were avoiding eye contact by looking at their cell phones, lips pulled down and leaving moderately disapproving lines on their cheeks. Gamzee and Tavros didn't even notice, too caught up in one another to give the rest of the world the time of day.

By the time they'd consumed all of their food, Tavros had snorted Coke out of his nose and Gamzee's fries were all over the table and the floor, scattered in a tragic accident that left many starchy families dead in the aftermath. Gamzee considered rounding them up off the dirty tiled floor to give them a proper burial, but a few careless feet stepped on them and smeared their soft potato insides across the floor. Gamzee kept up a running commentary about how he'd hate to be the guy cleaning up that gory mess.

Tavros was slumped back in his chair, chest heaving with silent laughter and eyes filling up with mirthful tears. Gamzee watched the way florescent lighting played over his smooth skin.

"My nose is burning," Tavros choked out, referring to the carbonated drink that had projected from his nostrils moments before. Gamzee handed him another napkin to blow the sugary drink out of his sinuses, but Tavros was laughing too hard to notice. Gamzee fluttered it in his face.

"Might you take this motherfuckin' favor, knight all up in shiny armor?" Gamzee asked, grinning hard enough that his eyes were squinting. It started up a new round of choking and spluttering until Tavros finally calmed down. Gamzee had his elbows on the table, flicking the napkin in front of his face and staring over them like a sexy harem girl in every pornography created. Tavros swallowed hard, and Gamzee wasn't sure if it was to put a stopper on his laughter or an effect of the gaze over a recycled paper product.

"Such a lovely token of your affections," Tavros said, pulling the napkin from between Gamzee's fingers. He folded it and tucked it in his pocket, eyes bright as ever and wet with mirth. "I'll keep it safe forever, I promise." Gamzee was more or less certain that he was going to succumb to cardiac arrest in Tavros' presence. For as mild-mannered and quiet as he was, he had an uncanny ability to wire his unpredictability into the mainframe of Gamzee's nervous system.

"My motherfuckin' hero. Here I am, up and twitterpated like a school girl, fluttering napkins at you like fuckin' white panties and you up and pull the gentleman card." Tavros' eyes flashed as a smirk edged into his grin.

"I, uh, look forward to seeing these panties under your school girl skirt." Laughter edged into Gamzee's mock fury, carried over the amalgamation of voices in the restaurant. Tavros rubbed a thumb across Gamzee's prominent knuckles to ease his false anger. Gamzee's heart tried to break out of his chest like a bird from a cage, cracking open his ribs and letting his viscera spill out across the table and floor, mixing with the gore from the unfortunate french fry casualties.

Tavros' eyes were uncertain on Gamzee's, flickering from side to side. People were staring. They'd caught Tavros' attention.

"Hey Tavbro, let's up and get out of here. We'll go check out this sassy motherfuckin' rap night you've been flappin' your lips about, bro."

The club was loud and it was hard to talk, but the beats were slick and Tavros seemed to know more about rap than he knew about engineering. Which was a miraculous feat in of itself, considering he ate, slept and breathed his schoolwork. He didn't lie about drinking, either; he drank like a fish, downing pints of beer like he was going to die of thirst and staying seemingly unaffected by the alcohol content. They left when the music degenerated into top 40s hip hop, ears ringing and grinning from ear to ear.

Gamzee walked Tavros back to the campus. Gamzee's loopy smile shone through his face paint as they spat rhymes at one another, reciting Gangster's Paradise and Changes, stumbling through half cut lyrics of their own before dissolving into laughter. Their breath spiraled up through cold air like the condensed essence of their souls, twining together before dissipating against the obsidian sky.

The clock tower in the middle of campus chimed two, sound waves vibrating through tight knit molecules. They bid one another farewell outside Tavros' building, and Gamzee's knuckles burned after their encounter with Tavros'.

He watched Tavros' back until he couldn't see him in the window anymore.

Half way up the stairs, Tavros looked back. The smile on his face made Gamzee's think pan catch fire, tearing through neurons and pain receptors until there was nothing left but a goofy grin and glazed black eyes.

He waved a final time before retreating up the stairs.

Karkat was waiting up for him. The apartment was dark when he walked inside, but the air was tense with a brand of emotion that reeked of Karkat. Gamzee bee lined for the living room, plopping on the couch beside the dark figure slumped over into the cushions.

Karkat was curled up, but he immediately stretched his legs out for Gamzee to drop his head into his lap. They sat in silence for a while, but the tension from before was disintegrating. Karkat's fingers threaded into his hair and worked against his scalp; their breath warmed the space between them.

"So?" Karkat asked. His voice was small, losing itself to the sounds of an empty, sleeping house. He smudged a line of face paint into Gamzee's hairline.

"It went well." Gamzee felt the muscles in Karkat's legs relax, felt him press back into the couch as if he'd been holding his breath for the past twelve hours. "It went really well." Gamzee launched into a whispered account of the day, gesturing wildly into the dark as if his hands could compound his feelings into words.

"You're a love struck twonk. You're gushing and its disgusting." His hands in Gamzee's hair were as gentle as the tone of his voice. Gamzee loosely wrapped his fingers around Karkat's wrists.

"I know, but I can't motherfuckin' help it. This dude is taking over my think pan processes like a cancer, bro."

"I can tell. He pretty much gave you the romantic go ahead when he told you he wanted you see you in girlie underwear; he's either clueless or interested." Gamzee's grin nearly lit up the darkness of the room.

"Do you up and think so? That would be all sorts of motherfuckin' miraculous, best friend."

"Stuff the miracle talk, you delirious cock mongler."

The pills still tasted like a finely ground poison, and they still caught in the back of his throat like steel hooks, and he still needed half a liter of Faygo to wash it down with. But for the first time in a long time, he didn't find himself complaining about it.

He shared a fresh dime bag with Karkat on the balcony, christening Karkat's new pipe with the swankiest sneeze they had on hand since Karkat bought more that afternoon. Eridan's window was open and they could hear his obnoxious buzz saw snoring; they had to choke back laughter when they heard Feferi attempt to smother him with a pillow to try and shut him up.

When the rest of the apartment was silent, nothing but creaking from the old building settling and the sound of errant vehicles driving by on the street below, Gamzee couldn't sleep. He laid awake, staring at the ceiling like they would divulge the secrets of human existence if he watched long enough.

The monotony felt like a living presence. It pulled at his skin like vultures tearing the flesh from a freshly culled corpse. Gamzee turned to stare at the clowns on his wall, awash in indigo and heliotrope and crimson.

The inspiration was like a fire cracker. Blankets were thrown to the floor in his haste, rummaging through his closet for tubes of orange, golden rod, sunshine fucking yellow.

Gamzee traced thin fingers over the outline of his favorite clown, the centerpiece for the entire room. He took up a piece of chalk and began outlining horns with long, even strokes. A rough pair of brahma horns jutted from the clown's head before Gamzee painstakingly began filling them with acrylic paint.

Fumes filled the room, but Gamzee couldn't stop to open the windows. If he stopped, he reasoned, he wouldn't remember what he was doing, and it was imperative that he finish. One pair of horns turned to twelve, curling and jutting from grey skin and dark hair. They were bright against their background, against their subjects.

He pulled back to admire his masterpiece as the sun was beginning to light the sky. His eyes, as always, caught on the centermost clown. He traced his eyes along the long bull horns, admired the fade from red to orange to yellow. He glanced down at the clown grinning up at the first, the gently corkscrewed keratin jutting from wild hair. They looked good together, he decided. He reached forward and traced the minimal space between them with a paint stained finger.

When Gamzee finally slept, he was sore from bending and stretching, covered in vermillion and xanthous stains. Clowns danced behind his eyes in a gesture of their thanks, twirling until their horns were nothing but golden blurs and their pleased shrieking echoed into the recesses of his brain.


	4. Yo I Been Thinkin' 'Bout Fuckin' A Dude

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gamzee or Karkat or Homestuck, as I'm not nearly as fly as Andrew Hussie. However, I do own the hours spent writing and researching this monstrosity.

**Pairings:** Gamzee/Tavros main. Various other pairings to float around in the background.

**Summary:** Gamzee's life revolves around his spit fire of a roommate, stabbing people full of holes, and a boy who lives in the stacks of the library. Unfortunately, he's also tied to a bottle of pills that sits so unassumingly in his bathroom cabinet.

**Warnings:** Blatant fluff and adorableness, boy/boy situations, future boy/girl and girl/girl situations, recreational drug use and references to stoner culture, serious psychological illnesses, abuse of multitudes of cliches, mediocre to awful rap battles, filthy language, varying creativity of insults, Gamzee cooking, Karkat being a little bitch, Gamzee's obsession with clowns, and darker themes to be added in time.

**Author would like you to note:** I am seriously fucking sorry for this long long wait. There are, however, extremely legitimate reasons for the delay. To see them in full, go here: post/26991014700/life-and-fic-updates-below-the-cut-a-winding because I really don't want to put it all in here. TLDR; There was a death and now there is some legal bullshit over the will and also I have a crippling case of tonsillitis that may result in surgery. So as a peace offering, I've made this chapter 1,000 words longer. Title from No Homo - The Lonely Island. Without further ado, here is the fourth chapter!

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April was a shitty month.

Not only did it rain nearly every day - and not the kind of rain that brought May flowers, either; it was the kind of rain that blew off the ocean and attempted to needle your ass right off your body in a frozen clump - but Tavros had more or less locked himself away to be a kiss ass study fuck.

Gamzee was a tad bitter. Considering that the highlight of the month was Karkat's reaction to the Nurse Karkat doodle he'd carefully stuck to the refrigerator, he felt like he'd earned a little bitterness. Especially when Karkat had gotten back at him with a print out of a plush unicorn that you could stick your dick in. He'd highlighted the text that explained how easy the clean up was with the aid of a removable lining, and grinned a particularly smug grin when Gamzee scrambled to switch the channel whenever animated ponies flashed across the screen.

Tavros had stopped going to the library because it was too full, too loud, housed too many distractions. He'd leveled his eyes right at Gamzee when he mentioned the distractions. Gamzee made a half cut joke about the trials and tribulations of being beautiful while his chest tightened and threatened to condense under the pressure of his fluttering lungs and his pounding heart, a star gone super nova, pulled in by its own gravity to create a giant black suck hole in deep space.

While Gamzee knew that the kid was anal and convinced that he would fail if he didn't spend every waking moment studying, he had a wicked case of the sad and lonelies, what with not seeing his bright bro every day. He pierced and painted and dealt with bratty, sleep deprived students without one spoken word from the Pretty motherfucking Boy. It was starting to wear on him.

He hadn't realized how attached he'd grown to the kid over the course of seven weeks. He would have thought it was strange if it hadn't been a month of daily contact, give or take the odd despised Wednesday with group and private sessions, tired group leaders and overly perky therapists. A month of contact, nearly six months characterized by attentive, dark eyes watching a broad back and shoulders around corners, using the shelves as makeshift nuke shelters in case hazel bombs fell on him and set his nerves aflame.

Karkat still teased him viciously over his apparent love sickness. He was also dropping some hints that were the exact motherfucking opposite of subtle about meeting Tavros; which turned Gamzee's think pan around because Karkat, very simply, despised 99% of the human population. The fact that he was willing to go out of his way to meet and play nice with the object of Gamzee's affections confused him faster than the convoluted tangle of relationships in Karkat's day time rom coms.

It also warmed him from his follicles to his motherfuckin' extremities. His main bro wanted to meet his bright bro, the target of his romantic fixation. Gamzee would grin at a sheepish Karkat when he dropped his hints like heat seeking missiles, thinking that he probably couldn't find a better brand of happiness if he searched the world over.

The only time he was apprehensive would be when he was in his room, with the rest of the world sleeping. Doubt crept in, stripping the paint from the interior of his skull; it was never voices, just a grim cloud of anxiety that rumbled and told him _you're not good enough. _It would rain down on him until his face paint smeared in long streaks down the hollows of his cheeks, under his eyes, brushing the water away with pointed fingertips.

There were, of course, also the times where warmth would spill out of his chest cavity, down his atrophied ribs to curl in the pit of his stomach like a calescent snake. He was pretty sure that he might be happier if he could press himself against Tavros' warm, hard side and press his mouth against the brown skin of his neck. Yeah, he was pretty certain that being with Tavros like _that_ would be his motherfucking magnum opus.

"Hello, Gamzee. Please take a seat."

If there was one thing he hated more than Wednesdays in April, it was when there was a new goddamn therapist. At least this one was a lot prettier than the overweight, balding fuck he'd had to endure for the previous four years. Smooth blonde hair, high cheekbones, eyes such an intense shade of blue they seemed violet. A little eye candy while he received a first degree grilling.

"We haven't met before; my name is Doctor Rose Lalonde," she said; her voice was strangely soothing. His lazy, ever present grin quirked a bit at the corners of his mouth.

"Nice to up and meet ya, sis. You're obviously pretty motherfuckin' intimate with who I am," he said, voice companionable as he gestured to his file at the edge of her desk. She nodded and managed not to catch her hair in the lip gloss smeared across her mouth, over plum lipstick. Motherfuckin' slick, this lady was.

"I am very aware of your condition and your history, Mr. Makara." She didn't stutter or break eye contact when she mentioned his past; that was new.

"It's _Mah_-kahrah, sis. Motherfuckin' Hispanic up in here."

"Ah, I apologize. Thank you for correcting me, I ensure you that I will remember. I did see that your mother was of Spanish decent. Do you visit any of your family?" Gamzee wasn't used to his therapists trying to make nice; they read his file and they immediately labeled him as a trouble case, the history and the recreational drugs that stood out so starkly on the blood tests. They would be jittery around him, small talk surrounded by awkward silence before aborting the mission and immediately jumping into his condition, his symptoms, his projected progress.

"Uh, yeah. _Mi abuelos_ live south of Madrid, I up and visit them once or twice a year. And _mi tíos _in the Canary Islands every once in a while, too." He was too lazy to search for the English terms lodged in the back of his uprooted and fucking confused think pan. Her painted lips quirked into a genuine sort of smirk as she commented on how beautiful Spain was; she didn't mention his father's side of the family.

She would have seemed oily, like a smoothed over con man if she hadn't have seemed genuinely interested. Her words were chosen with a precision that made Gamzee think she'd rehearsed the exact conversation in front of a mirror, queues written on the inside curve of her wrist. She asked him very basic questions and, for the first time since he was very young and assigned to one of his first shrinks, he found himself filling in the silence with easy conversation. Doctor Rose Lalonde never fully smiled and never offered any information about herself, but she seemed to immerse herself in his words and actually _listen_.

He talked more in the first fifteen minutes of his session than he'd talked in any of the sessions from the previous two years combined. Lalonde offered him tea and he wound up slouched down in the chair, legs spread and a mug of Earl Grey dwarfed by long, thin hands. She waited until he'd silenced himself by taking a slow sip.

"How are your living arrangements, Gamzee? I believe you live with Eridan Ampora and Karkat Vantas, correct?"

"Yeah, sis, up in the Transitional Outpatient Housing building up on the edge of downtown. The apartment is nice, and the neighbors are pretty motherfuckin' silent. There are times when I wonder if we're not the only fuckers still kickin' in that joint." He took another drink of his tea before explaining that Karkat had been his best friend since they were eleven years old, how Feferi was the sweetest little sister he'd ever had the pleasure of knowing and that he had no idea how Eridan had bagged such a flawless creature. He easily segued into his gig at the piercing parlor, the promotion following Aradia's epic job offer, the tedium of working at a university library.

He'd long set his empty mug down by the time Lalonde called their time. An hour of therapy had never gone so fast, and while he wasn't sure how much actual therapy got done, he was happy with this new doctor and her ability to make minutes fall away like clothing at a nudist commune.

Gamzee walked through the clinic, nearly skipping past the nurses office, pleased as fucking punch that he didn't have to get pricked by needles that week. Karkat was waiting in the lobby, hunched down in a bright yellow chair and glaring at anyone who got too close. Gamzee bee lined for him and pulled him out of the chair by his elbows.

"Hey, best friend! Time to get our motherfuckin' walk on, don't you think?" Karkat yanked his arms out of Gamzee's grip, rolling his eyes and turning away.

"Aw, best motherfuckin' friend! Don't be like that!" Karkat's sour mood seemed to deepen with Gamzee's cheerful disposition. He shoved his hands into the pockets of worn jeans, pulling a pack of cigarettes out and clamping one between his teeth. He only bit on the filters of his cigs when he was attempting to hold himself back from physical violence. Gamzee took it in and felt his grin die a bit, holding his lighter up between two thin fingers as a peace offering. Karkat plucked it from his fingers and lit himself up, shoulders up around his ears like the hackles of a pissed off cat. Gamzee fixed himself up with his own cigarette, blowing smoke into the air as they walked in the cool spring evening, sun retreating behind the horizon like a dying animal curling in on itself.

After three cigarettes and some fast walking, Karkat started to calm down. His shoulders loosened and he stretched the kinks out of his neck with languid movements, smoke trailing from his mouth like a particularly gracious smudging stick. The angry vibes seem to slip off his skin and plop against the ground in heavy, viscous lumps.

"Bad session?" Gamzee asked around his cigarette, calculating how much weed they had left and how many days they had to wait until they got paid. Karkat's face hardened again, but his shoulders stayed low.

"My quack is a fucking Friedrich Nietzche-esque goddamn sadist, Gamz." Irate voice, but quiet. Good signs from there on out.

"You saying the dude's got syphilis, bro?" Karkat barked out a sharp laugh, smoke forcefully expelled from his lungs and spiraling upwards.

"Nah, man. Shit about life affirmation, about the "negative energy" that I proliferate from hating everyone around me draining my life energy or something. Real fucking treat, this guy is."

"And here I thought he'd be preachin' to a motherfucker about the death of God. Does he at least have a rockin' mustache?" Another laugh, notably less bitter.

"Nope. I have nothing interesting to look at while he give's me the first degree."

"Oh no, not the first degree. Did he up and try to strip search you, bro?"

"I wormed my way out of that one. He did mention something about a cavity search, though. I'll have to find a new hiding place for the weed, just in case." Gamzee threw his head back and laughed, smoke curling out of his mouth and nostrils.

They smoked and Karkat complained (loudly and with an unnecessary amount of expletives) about his session as they walked home. They were barely through the door when Gamzee's phone piped up: a series of texts from a certain chucklefuck who'd previously been married to his studies.

_sO, gUESS WHO FINISHED HIS EXAMS TODAY,_

_ yOU HAVE ONE, oNLY ONE GUESS,_

_ yOU'LL NEVER, gET IT,_

Gamzee's grin nearly split his face in two, face paint cracking on his cheeks. Karkat rolled his eyes and chirped about sappy shit smugglers and threw the fridge door open to search for something to eat.

_wElL i'M uP aNd GoInG tO sAy PiMp DaDdY t. NiTrAm, BrOtHeR._

Gamzee fired off the text and wandered into the kitchen, rolling his eyes at Karkat's motley assortment of ingredients before putting half of them back and deciding to create a solid feed of fajitas.

"_En la mode de mi abuela_, motherfucker."

"Stop fucking speaking in foreign tongues and make me some goddamn grub, twat nuzzler."

"Sure did change your tune from calling me a cock sucker the other day, brother."

"I said can it, Makara." Another series of high noises from his phone made Karkat roll his eyes.

_ cONGRATULATIONS! fIRST, tRY AND, eVERYTHING,_

_ i'M GOING OUT, wITH dAVE AND CO,_

_ dO YOU WANT, tO HANG OUT, iN A FEW HOURS,_

"Okay, what did the little fairy whisper in your ear." It was a question phrased as a statement, as Karkat's inquiries often were when he was irritable and hungry.

"Dude's done his finals, wants me to up and chill with him later." Karkat crossed his arms above his chest, face wiped clean of an expression.

"You realize that if you say no that I'm going to fucking flay you and turn your skin into a rug, right?"

"I motherfuckin' figured, bro."

"And then I'm going to find the dirtiest chick in the downtown vicinity and have sex with her on that rug."

"Oh, now you're up and getting vulgar, man. I refuse to up and take your furious blame when you contract a venereal disease."

"Invite the kid over for some celebratory green therapy. He's going to be drunk by the time he gets here, anyway."

"And if he falls asleep?"

"He's going to be in your fucking bed eventually, is he not? Invite him over. You've been fucking gagging for a chance to see him." Gamzee stroked a thumb over the screen before he started typing.

_cOnGrAtUlAtIoNs To YoU, mOtHeRfUcKeR! _

_ i ImAgInE yOu'Re GeTtInG rEaDy To Up AnD rAkE iN yOuR A's. HaVe A CeLeBrAtOrY dRiNk FoR mE, bRoThEr._

_ AnD iF yOu FeEl LiKe It LaTeR, yOu CaN MoThErFuCkIn' CoMe OvEr AnD mEeT tHe BeSt FrIeNd I'vE bEeN tElLiNg yOu AbOuT. wE'lL uP aNd tReAt YoU tO a LiTtLe GrEeN hOsPiTaLiTy, HoNk :o)_

Gamzee shoved his phone in his back pocket and immediately pulled the wok out from a cupboard, heating it up on the stove and pouring some cooking oil into it. He refused to meet Karkat's eyes, biting the inside of his cheek. He was so hyper aware of his phone in his pocket that he thought he'd felt it vibrating and went to grab it before he remembered it was on loud. Karkat's eyebrow crept higher onto his forehead.

"Gamz, calm your shriveled tits."

"I think my tits are motherfuckin' nice, jerk."

"Dude, you're skeletal. Your tits are just this side of bony." There was a short silence before Karkat let out a noise of frustration.

"Stop freaking out! He just fucking _asked_ you to hang out, dumb shit. He's not going to text back in a sudden homophobic rage and tell you to never contact him again." Karkat barely got the words out of his mouth before Gamzee's phone pinged again and he nearly dropped a cutting board in his haste to pull it out of his pocket.

_tHAT SOUNDS PRETTY AWESOME, tEXT ME YOUR ADDRESS, aND i'LL GET DIRECTIONS }:)_

"You need to stop getting so worked up over trivial shit. You'll start sprouting grey fucking hairs and then no twinks are going to volunteer to come over." Gamzee's response was a punch to Karkat's shoulder before returning to kitchen duties with a mile-wide grin carved into his cheeks.

Gamzee's mouth still had a residual burn from the fajitas like the slow heat of coals burning into ash when his phone started ringing off the hook. He was dozing on the couch with Karkat, his hip pressed into Karkat's stomach. Karkat jumped and yelped, forced out of his food induced snooze by vibration and loud tweets. Gamzee wiggled it out of his pocket, looking at the texts and smiling to himself because Tavros was on his way over, Tavros was coming over for the first time and he was finished his exams and Gamzee just wanted to get his arms around him and hug him for a solid twelve minutes straight.

Gamzee plotted out careful directions with a grin on his face wide enough to rival the Grand Canyon. Karkat pressed his face against Gamzee's torso with a groan, complaining about second hand embarrassment and sentimental gush-fucks. Gamzee ruffled his hair and wiggled out from underneath him, texting and pacing the length of the apartment and checking the state of his face paint in every suitable surface.

It was 10:58 pm when he texted.

Tavros arrived at 11:14 pm.

Instead of buzzing him up, Gamzee ran out the door to meet him at the bottom of the stairwell. He heard Karkat's exasperated shouting but ignored it, racing down three flights of stairs and nearly wrenching the door off it's hinges. Tavros looked shocked through the double paned glass, but by the time Gamzee had thrown the door open and enveloped him in a tight embrace it had turned into a beaming grin.

"Man, Tav, you've been locked up for too motherfuckin' long!" Gamzee said into the grown out fuzz around Tavros' ear. Strong forearms were pressed against his back, a warm hand spanning the bony space between his shoulder blades. Fingertips pressed against the sharp knobs of his spine and Gamzee squeezed him a bit harder.

"I know, but I'm finally done!" His voice was smooth; it rolled out of his mouth like whiskey pouring over ice. His breath smelled like beer.

"Yeah, and you probably up and destroyed each and every one of those shitty exams. Ripped through 'em like wet paper towel or some shit." Gamzee felt Tavros' grin against his neck. He gave a final squeeze and gently pushed away. Gamzee's fingers ghosted down a dark forearm before he pulled away completely, gesturing for Tavros to follow him up the stairs.

"How was drinking with the mysterious roomie?" Gamzee asked, and Tavros grinned before launching into a story about a blind girl and how much beer she could drink, _it's unprecedented Gamzee, I don't know how her liver isn't drowning it's tiny liver lungs in IPA_. They were discussing the merits of a liver backstroke when they hit the third floor, Tavros' arm slung over Gamzee's shoulder. He could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric and he wanted to turn his head and press his nose against that muscular shoulder and just breath him in.

"Are you up and motherfuckin' ready to meet the best fucking irate bro the world has ever known?" Gamzee asked, pulling out from underneath Tavros' outstretched limb and moving to grip the door knob. Tavros moved close, nodding with a grin and those bright hazel eyes.

Much to Gamzee's delight, Karkat was civil - almost social, which was a motherfucking miracle in it's own right. He sized him up with a single raised eyebrow and shook his outstretched hand and tried to square the painfully shy person Gamzee had been telling him about with the outgoing dude who was introducing himself. Liquid courage was the only viable explanation for Tavros dropping his quiet, shy demeanor.

Karkat was the model roommate-best-friend-combo; he talked to Tavros like a human being who was genuinely interested in him. Gamzee found himself pleasantly surprised, beaming and tingling from head to toe because it was _happening_, the two most important spectrums of his social life could be in close proximity to one another and not clash and ricochet back and create widespread catastrophe. The two very separate entities could subsist in the same contented, enjoyable airspace. It was better than motherfucking Christmas morning.

They sat in the living room conversing. Gamzee pressed against Tavros' side and drank his every word in; Karkat shook his head and rolled his eyes and Tavros slung his arm across Gamzee's shoulder's once again. It was easy and comfortable and _domestic_. Gamzee and Tavros were melded from shoulder to hip to knee; Tavros rolled the hem of Gamzee's sleeve between his fingers, brushing his fingertips against Gamzee's skin and making him shiver. Tavros either didn't acknowledge it or didn't notice, but Karkat's eyes flicked between the two of him like he was watching a particularly juicy soap opera unfold.

The topic of weed came up. Karkat was already slipping out onto the balcony when Tavros stood up. He was a little wobbly, limbs unsteady from the alcohol and whatever nervous energy was zipping through his limbs. Gamzee stood and gently steadied him with a hand on the small of his back.

"You don't have to partake in the green tonight, Tavbro. Don't let Karkat bully you into it." Tavros looked at him and grinned, eyes glassy in the low light.

"Dude, it's okay. It's not like it's my first time, I'm pretty well versed." Tavros' arm slipped around his waist as they walked to the kitchen and out onto the balcony. The air was cool from a recent rain, smelled fresh underneath the stink of exhaust fumes and city pollution. Gamzee offered one of the two chairs to Tavros, who plopped down in it and pulled Gamzee into his lap, wide hands spread across Gamzee's abdomen and holding him against his chest. Gamzee squirmed a bit, turned in Tavros' lap and rested his jaw on Tavros' head. Karkat's thick eyebrows nearly met his hairline as he stared at the two of them. He was visibly biting back a grin as he packed the first bowl, taking a long hoot before passing it on.

Tavros set the edge of the bong on Gamzee's sharp thigh, taking the lighter from Karkat's outstretched fingers and bringing the opening to his mouth. Gamzee watched from between soft strands of Tavros' shaggy mohawk, only moving when his head bobbed from a sudden cough nearing the end of his exhale. Karkat laughed as Tavros coughed and Gamzee pulled the bong from Tavros' hands, grinning against his temple.

"It's strong," Tavros sputtered between coughs, setting Karkat off again.

"It's the pimpest sneeze we've got, bro," Gamzee said, pressing his mouth against the shell of Tavros' ear so he could hear over Karkat's laughter. Tavros pressed the side of his face against Gamzee's. Something warm flared in Gamzee's stomach, making him grin like a fucking clown in his face paint. Every particle in his body wanted to lean forward and connect their mouths; instead he pulled away and took a long drag off the bong, holding it deep in his chest and trying to dampen the urge to pry Tavros' lips open with his tongue and blow the smoke into his mouth.

The bong went around until the bowl was tapped. Karkat hit it against his thigh, forcing the burnt remains of bud onto the cement floor of the balcony. They stumbled into the kitchen; Tavros and Gamzee grinning like abject fools and Karkat's expression more smile than grimace. Gamzee warmed his cold hands against the small of Tavros' back and Tavros beamed and dropped a few Lonely Island lines, straight up fucking giggling. It was high pitched, yet husky and inviting and it made Gamzee's brain stutter and choke, struggling to start up again as Tavros pressed back against Gamzee's hands, against his sharply angled body. Gamzee wrapped his arms around him and Tavros rubbed one cold hand between his own.

"Let's hit the hot tub and take a dunk."

"No homo!"

"We're all friends, ain't no need for trunks."

"No homo!"

"Are you going to make us some food or just cling to his back like a koala and spout inane lines from a bad excuse for music?" Karkat asked, quirking an eyebrow as Tavros blushed and stuttered.

"Hey, Lonely Island is pretty much hilarious. Don't be up and dissing the strict rhymes, bro." Gamzee pulled away from Tavros' warmth and pulled the refrigerator open, checking what kind of ingredients he had to work with.

"D'you motherfuckers want fucking breakfast?" Gamzee asked, interrupting Karkat's teasing and Tavros' low laughter. "I've gone and had a goddamn epiphany and its name is breakfast sandwich." Karkat made an overly pleased noise.

"Make them with french toast bread and you've got yourself a fucking deal, Makara." Tavros made a happy noise of assent and Gamzee got to work. Karkat and Tavros held a steady, stimulating stoner conversation as Gamzee worked, dipping bread in egg and cinnamon before slapping it into a pan. He gave them french toast to munch on as he fried the remainders of the carton of eggs and half a package of bacon, taking a few syrup soaked bites off of Tavros' fork as he waited for the cheddar cheese to melt. He presented them each with a towering, double decker breakfast sandwich dripping with yolk and bacon grease and cheese.

Tavros all but moaned through his nose as he ate, Karkat rolling his eyes without actually saying anything as he inhaled his own sandwich. Gamzee was so pleased with himself he was sure he was flushing under his face paint; he noticed some had rubbed off against Tavros' skin and hoped that his blush couldn't be seen through the damage.

The dishes were left soaking in the sink for Karkat to clean "whenever the fuck I deem it time to wake up, ass much." Gamzee shot something back about Thursdays and work schedules. Karkat brushed him off and immediately headed for his room, barking a quick goodnight before shutting the door behind him and undoubtably flopping down in his bed. A quiet descended as Gamzee placed the last of the dishes in the sink, turning back and staring into fever bright eyes, disjointed from reality and staring at Gamzee with the hungry intent of a predator. His breath caught.

"I'm up and gonna try to sleep, Tav. You're fuckin' welcome to spend the night, if you don't want to make the long, intoxicated trek back to campus." Tavros' mouth quirked up.

"That, um, that would be great, actually. Thanks, man." Gamzee turned off the lights and Tavros tucked two fingers into one of his belt loops, letting Gamzee guide him down the dark hallway to his bedroom.

"Here we are. _Mi casa es su casa_, brother. Make yourself at motherfuckin' home; I have to take my lady-like face off, if you know what I'm sayin'." Before he could answer, Gamzee was flitting off to the bathroom, locking himself in and staring himself down in the mirror.

Tavros was in his home. He was high and at least a little bit drunk, and had been touching him all night.

Tavros was going to sleep in his motherfucking room and Gamzee's heart was beating like a hummingbird behind his ribs.

He methodically pulled his hair back, washed the paint from his face and stared at himself in the mirror. Dark eyes with dark bags beneath them, lips pink from scrubbing and biting at wasn't sure if it was the high or if it was Tavros' effect on him, but everything seemed fucking ethereal. Shadows looked too deep, too dark; tenebrosity swirled in the confines of his irises, the hollows of his cheeks, the deep folds in the cartilage of his ears.

Gamzee opened a drawer in the vanity and took out his little bottle of pills, swallowing them down with tap water and grimacing. He scrubbed his mouth out with minty toothpaste, trying to brush the acrid residue out of his mouth. He fingered the plugs in his ears, pushing the tip of his ring finger through the tunnel and pulling them out to clean them. He washed his hands and cleaned under his nails and generally fucked around in the bathroom until there was nothing left to do but go see what Tavros had gotten up to.

Tavros had, indeed, made himself comfortable. He was lounging on the inside half of Gamzee's bed, propped up against the wall in nothing but boxers. Gamzee swallowed hard, and Tavros beamed when he noticed him.

"The paintings on the walls are, uh, pretty boss. Did you do them yourself?" Tavros asked, gesturing to the clowns. Gamzee couldn't see past the curve of his wrist, the tendons in those big, strong hands.

"Uh, yeah. I'm into that artsy fartsy thing, bro." Gamzee stripped his shirt off and immediately felt far too exposed. Tavros was fucking gorgeous, a study in musculature and flawless physique, all thick forearms and tight abs. Gamzee in comparison was a fucking stick, nothing but vertebral knobs and protruding ribs and olive skin stretched tight across his skeletal structure. Hazel eyes, green eyes, bright eyes flickered over his body and Tavros was blushing, dark skin ruddy and gaze suddenly shy.

"You're, um. You're really good." Tavros' terminal case of shy seemed to seep in, eyes averted from Gamzee's naked skin and instead staring at the walls, following intricate patterns and jagged lines. Gamzee shucked his jeans and pulled a pair of drawstring sweatpants up onto his sharp hips.

"Thanks, bro. You up and okay sharing the bed? I can sleep on the couch, bro, no biggie." Tavros was still blushing when he snapped his attention back to Gamzee, standing in the middle of the room with an arm wrapped around his middle. He looked as self conscious as he felt, elbows sticking out awkwardly and trying to create an impenetrable shield to hide himself behind.

"Absolutely not! I'm not going to take your bed and leave you to the couch when you have to work tomorrow. Just, get in the bed, Gamz. Don't be ridiculous." Gamzee grinned and dropped to his knees on the edge of the mattress, giving Tavros time to wiggle around until he found a comfortable spot before reaching over to flick off the lights and face planting into one of his pillows. They both flopped around a bit before they were both facing one another, giggling in the dark and rapping Lonely Island.

Tavros' knee moved to rest against Gamzee's thigh. Gamzee bit his bottom lip and forced himself not to move closer.

Tavros quickly fell into a deep sleep, sanctioned by weed and beer and a full belly. Gamzee studied his face in the lines of light that fell from his window, reaching up from the street three stories below. Gamzee was restless; he often had trouble sleeping, but this was an unfamiliar series of distractions. He was warm, itching to close four inches of space and press his body against Tavros'. He wanted to taste the skin in the hollow behind his ear, slowly rouse him with kisses and gentle touches.

Instead, he was practically vibrating on his side of the bed, unable to close his eyes in fear that he would miss something.

He slipped out of the bed, sitting on the floor and staring at Tavros. He pulled his sketch pad from between the wall and his night table, digging for a pencil and opening to the first blank page. He made long, careful strokes across the page, as if he could emulate with paper and graphite how he would touch the pretty boy in his bed. He filled in muscular shoulders and a thick waist, twitching the blankets down to see how his hipbones curved, how his waist tapered into narrow hips. He shaded every tendon, every freckle mapped across tanned skin, the long, thick fall of lashes against high cheekbones.

Tavros shifted in his sleep and Gamzee loudly fumbled with his sketchbook, shoving it back into it's home and dropping the pencil on the carpet. Tavros shifted, the blanket moving further down his hips, pulling at the elastic band of his trousers. Gamzee rolled onto the bed and tugged it back up around his shoulders, breathing heavily and flushing from the show he very nearly witnessed. He settled into the mattress and tried to force the heat on his face down and willed himself into a fitful sleep.

When Gamzee woke up, he was very groggy, and very surprised to hear his alarm clock ringing. He always woke before his alarm, no exceptions.

He was also very warm. It took him a moment, but when Tavros tightened his arms around his waist and groaned at the loud beeping, he realized that he was pulled back-to-chest against one half naked Tavros Nitram.

Tavros released him immediately upon fully waking up and Gamzee sat up, slapping his alarm clock and rubbing his eyes. He looked back at Tavros, who was stretching, and he was seriously far too fucking gorgeous to just be waking up. Gamzee cursed whoever made him so painfully beautiful.

"Work?" Tavros asked, voice gruff with sleep and it stirred something hot in the pit of Gamzee's stomach, like hot coals set back to flame from a puff of air.

"Yeah, bro. Wanna come along? If it's not busy I could up and shove a needle through you. You'd look good with a septum, Tav." Tavros flushed and his eyes widened and Gamzee laughed as he swanned off to the bathroom.

"I always enjoy it so much more when you're mutilating someone else." Karkat was sitting in the corner of the piercing room, fiddling with his cell, eyes flicking back and forth from the task at hand and the LED screen.

"Alright, Tav, take a few big motherfuckin' breaths for me, okay?" Tavros nodded, metal clamps hitting against his chin. His shoulders were tight, creeping up around his ears and betraying his nerves. Gamzee positioned the hollow needle at the break in the clamps, close enough to kiss Tavros' eyelids.

"Okay, up and take a deep breath, and slowly let it out." On the exhale, Gamzee speared his cartilage with a single smooth motion. Tavros flinched but kept his head still, letting Gamzee do his work. He opened the clamps up and removed them, replacing the needle with a plain, curved barbell. The beads were quickly screwed on before he wiped up the blood dripping into the dip of his top lip, a few droplets on his chin.

"See, Tavbro? Not so bad. You did fuckin' great, way better than the grumpy thundercloud over there."

"Fuck you, twat stain."

"Didn't even wriggle around and curse at me."

"It's not like I asked you to stab me through the ear with sharp metal implements, you raging dick weed." Gamzee raised an eyebrow at Tavros, who grinned up at him. He looked a bit ridiculous with a nose full of gauze and a swollen septum, but the piercing itself looked good.

"You're gonna be motherfuckin' beating the ladies off with sticks when the swelling goes down, bro." Tavros punched his thigh and laughed. When Gamzee was certain the blood was more or less staunched, he pulled a hand mirror from the counter and let Tavros see.

"Wow, it's pretty swollen. But it looks, really cool, actually. I like it. Like, a lot." His voice was slightly nasally from the trauma to his septum, but he was beaming up at him and seemed genuinely pleased. Gamzee filled him in on cleaning and general aftercare, and Tavros listened with wide eyes.

"I'll be able to up and help you with everything until you leave, but then you'll be on your motherfucking lonesome with the horses and shit."

"Are you sure I can't pay you for this?" Tavros was already pulling his wallet out. Gamzee stayed his hand, rolling his eyes. "No motherfuckin' way. Consider it a congratulations for up and acing your finals, brother."

Tavros and Karkat left. Tavros looked back and beamed, waving and stumbling on something on the sidewalk. Karkat grabbed his arm and hauled him forward, making Tavros' attention snap to him.

Gamzee grinned and watched them go before turning to clean up, heart so light in his chest he worried it would float up and out of his throat, squeezing through his esophagus and drowning him with blood.


	5. Chargin' 3, 2, 1 For A Little Contact

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gamzee or Karkat or Homestuck, as I'm not nearly as fly as Andrew Hussie. However, I do own the hours spent writing and researching this monstrosity.

**Pairings:** Gamzee/Tavros main. Various other pairings to float around in the background.

**Warnings:** Blatant fluff and adorableness, boy/boy situations, future boy/girl and girl/girl situations, recreational drug use and references to stoner culture, serious psychological illnesses, abuse of multitudes of cliches, mediocre to awful rap battles, filthy language, varying creativity of insults, Gamzee cooking, Karkat being a little bitch, Gamzee's obsession with clowns, and darker themes to be added in time.

**Author would like you to note:** Okay so just over a week past my projected updating time. Whoops. Oh well, it's better than two months like last time. Turkey fuckers and the weens are compliments of Alex Kelly, who also owns all of my loving and deepest affections and all of my butt touching urges. Title from The Breakfast Club - Z-trip ft. Murs and Supernatural. Which I highly recommend you listening to for the last 1000 or so words of this chapter. Also because it is a perfect Gamzee and Tavros song and I have a lot of feels about it. Anyways, this is a cutie fill before shit goes downhill, so enjoy!

* * *

"How'd you procure, such a plush moving vehicle, 'Zee?" Tavros was stunned, a huge, heavy box filled with his belongings slipping under fingers gone loose with surprise. Gamzee was leaned back against a champagne Mercedes, buffed and shining in the noon sunlight. He spun the keys around a single, tapered finger and smirked; they twinkled like stars in a far off galaxy, light ricocheting and shooting off in every direction. Tavros just grinned at the spectacle, the forty thousand dollar car sitting so conspicuously among the various shit-box vehicles in the dorm parking lot. He shook his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, raised an eyebrow, peeking over the lenses. Gamzee's self satisfied smirk made his stomach tighten in warm, pleasant knots.

"Called in a favor or two, maybe up and pulled a few motherfuckin' illegal maneuvers." Tavros tipped his head back and laughed outright, stepping down the last few steps and pressing the box into Gamzee's arms. Their bare forearms touched and Tavros was pretty sure he could feel the good beginnings of a flush spreading across his cheekbones. Being with Gamzee had never made him happier to have such dark, ruddy skin - he had to be blushing like he'd been caught in the raw and sexual act by his highly Christian grandmother for anyone to notice a change in his skin color.

"Well, Mr. Badass, pack up that, sweet getaway car while I go snap up another box." He took the stairs back up to his shared dorm room two at a time, trying to muffle his steps on bits of the carpet that looked just a bit less threadbare. Finals were still in full swing, and the RAs tended to take silent hours with deadly seriousness. He'd been lucky enough to finish a few days before the three week period terminated, leaving the campus a veritable ghost town until summer term began.

His room was devoid of any other people or errant roommates, and his side of the room was already neatly packed up. Gamzee had been helping him pack the day before, messily dropping his stuff into cardboard boxes and scrawling the strangest assortment of labels across the sides. He'd been more than confused at first, but Gamzee just grinned and painted Tavros' nose with purple Sharpie and suddenly the fight had been _on_. Dave walked in on them scuffling on the ground, covered in streaks of orange and red and green, and just rolled his eyes before grabbing his backpack and announcing that he was going to be studying "anatomy" with Terezi (by which he meant that he'd be having vigorous rounds of sex between his girlfriend drubbing Government Law into his blond head).

He plucked a pair of red boxer shorts off of one of his cardboard boxes, a present from Dave, and threw them into the barely organized piles of shit on the floor that characterized his side of the room. Tavros carefully hefted another large, awkwardly weighted box and trailed out of the room, kicking the door shut behind him with the scuffed toe of his high top.

Gamzee and Tavros quickly found that the Mercedes would only take the three largest boxes in it's posh but terribly cramped backseat. Gamzee shrugged and pulled that stunning grin, plopping down into the driver's seat and motioning for Tavros to get in the car. He revved it up and nearly purred in delight at the smooth sound of the engine starting up.

"So the brother this car belongs to listens to the strangest fuckin' music, Tavbro, it is almost up and motherfuckin' unconscionable," Gamzee said, pressing a few buttons on the stereo and letting AC/DC filter through the speakers. "I was thinking we could up and get our sicknasty rhymes on, but I didn't motherfuckin' think to bring my own tunes, because what kind of fucker doesn't listen to our good friend rap? So it's either this or some pretentious fuckin' blue grass shit, and I happen to find classic rock a more than fuckin' acceptable alternative to spittin' sweet lines." Tavros leaned over and turned the volume up, head banging to the base line as Gamzee peeled out of he parking lot.

"I am, well and versed in the skeezy guitar riffs, presented by Sir Angus Young," he said, head fucking swimming as Gamzee tilted his face toward him and smiled through his face paint.

"'Atta boy, Tav. Gotta switch it up every once in a while!" By the time they'd arrived at Tavros' storage unit fifteen minutes later, Tavros had reclined his seat to get into the full swing of the noble art of air guitar. He was shredding invisible notes on an invisible guitar neck, Gamzee shouting the lyrics to _Problem Child_ and both of them giggling like school children on a sugar induced high.

They were still laughing as they bellied up to the counter at the storage unit. Tavros traded ID and credit cards for a series of keys to get into his storage garage, which was much more of a locker than a garage. The first three boxes fit in easily, stacked up and pushed into the furthest corner. He just hoped that the five smaller ones would fit in around them.

People were staring as the pulled back in front of Tavros' building, a solid fifty percent of the population wearing sweatpants and clutching at paper coffee cups like caffeine was the only thing cementing them to reality. They exchanged wide eyed glances and turned down the music considerably, trying not to break out in laughter at the glares and raised eyebrows being shot their way.

They managed to cram four of the last five boxes in the back seat, the final box situated in Tavros' lap. The second trip was far more subdued, with far too much stuff in a small sports car to get too rowdy on the drive. Gamzee had an unlit cigarette pinched between his lips, undoubtedly planning on lighting up the moment they stepped out of the car. He had to purse his lips a bit around the filter and Tavros wanted to lean over and pull it from his mouth, placing his lips on Gamzee's in the cigarette's absence. He tightened his grip on the box in his lap and looked out the windshield as Gamzee rambled about the plans he had for their "Fruity Rumpus Asshole Sleepover Bash," as Karkat had dubbed it. The car was full and there was no possible way for him to lean over and kiss Gamzee and that was probably a fucking blessing if he'd ever seen one.

He wasn't used to urges of such a gripping, sexual variety; they were the kind of urges that had tendons standing out in his hands, left him convincing his legs not to climb over the center console so he could press his tongue between his friend's lips. He was used to being the passive, quiet guy who didn't really care one way or another, just went with the current other people's rivers had blazed for him. Gamzee had smashed right through that; goading him on and teasing him and acting like he was a person and not a piece of scenery. His amenable personality made Tavros' passivity dissipate, made him want to reach out and taste the lazy grin off his face. For all his cajoling and the easy, quick friendship they'd established, Gamzee seemed pretty slow on the sexual uptake.

"I'm glad Karkat, isn't opposed to my presence for, the next week or so," Tavros said, barely loud enough to be heard over the music. Gamzee reached over and pinched at his cheek, rolling endlessly dark eyes.

"Of fuckin' course not, are you up and kidding me? He's been motherfuckin' looking forward to this shindig of fuckin' miraculous proportions, don't let him try to tell you he hasn't." Tavros grinned, relaxing into the seat and watching Gamzee's profile in the flickering sunlight.

"He'll probably get sick of us, sitting around and laughing like fools. I'm pretty certain I'll, get to witness one of his sick blowouts." Gamzee cackled and ruffled one hand through Tavros' messy mohawk, freshly shaved on the sides.

"Don't you up and worry your pretty fuckin' head about that, Tavbro. I'll be there to beef the fuck up and protect you from that irate little snot." Gamzee's chuckling grew into laughter, bright and pinging through the interior of Tavros' skull. Tavros reacted to it like a rat in a science lab, lapped it up like saccharine water on a slow drip.

"A little DNA reconstruction and you could pretty much morph into a big, purple Hulk. What do you say, 'Zee, want to look into a little genetic engineering via radioactive waste products?"

Tavros was set to spend the rest of his week with Gamzee before flying to his hometown for the four months of summer.

Tavros' suitcases were stashed away in the corner of Gamzee's bedroom; Gamzee had offered to sleep on the couch again, and Tavros tried to play off sleeping in a bed with a dude for a week, plenty of "no homo" bombs dropped around the apartment until Gamzee stopped offering. He caught Karkat giving Gamzee a silly expression complete with waggling eyebrows; he ducked into the bathroom to ensure that his face wasn't as bright as it felt like it was.

There was something between them, whether Gamzee knew it or not, and he didn't want to let it go to the wayside. Tavros had genuinely fucking missed him over a month of finals-induced jail time; he missed the face paint that accentuated his chiseled face, his strong jawline, the Cupid's bow grin-and-dimple combo. He'd missed the sharp smell of disinfectant and cigarette smoke, the distorted cadence of his voice, obsidian eyes with dark lashes lazily yet arduously following Tavros' movements and the lines of his body.

Tavros was going to dig into that part of their relationship and raise it up, coax it to grow and wind around his forearms.

Probably.

If he could overcome the heavy lump that cut off the circulation to his chest and sent his heart into a mad fucking flurry against his sternum whenever he thought about it.

"Gamzee, you useless, grubfucking shit can, just goddamn shoot him!"

"Man, I can't just up and take his pixelated life. Look at him, he probably has a little 8-bit family that he needs to motherfuckin' feed."

"GAMZEE YOU ARE GOING TO SHOOT HIM RIGHT FUCKING NOW-"

"Maaan, you're settin' off some wicked motherfuckin' negative energies, bro. Just relax and sip a little miraculous elixir, I got this mission well and underfoot-"

"Look what you've done, you pustulant ass munch, you've got your head chewed off."

"Lean back and chill, brother, your shoulders are around your ears and that looks hella uncomfortable. You're up and gonna get a kink in them muscles and where will you be then?"

"Why are you even playing this game if you're going to be some brainless goddamn hippie fuck?"

"''Cause I'm a motherfuckin' lover, bro, not a fighter."

"Gamzee, you're playing Left4Dead."

"Zombies are needing love and compassion, too, my brother."

"You're fucking dead to me."

"See? Now that I'm a shamblin' bag of decomposition, I need your tender lovin' more than ever."

"I am going to put your digestive track in a blender and force feed it to Russian orphans."

"That's the motherfuckin' spirit."

Tavros was tucked into Gamzee's side, shaking from the force of his giggles. He had his hands wrapped around a warm bottle of rootbeer Faygo that had been forgotten in the melee. He was pleasantly boneless, chest aching from proximity and the wheezing laughter from listening to Karkat and Gamzee fight. They'd smoking a dime bag of grapefruit Cush on the balcony. When he pressed his face against Gamzee's shoulder, he smelled like cigarettes and citrus and heavy, musky pot.

Gamzee was laughing, too, low chuckles reverberating from his throat as Karkat lost all patience and ripped the controller from his hands. He was swearing and button mashing, tendons standing out on his hands as he barreled through the carnival.

"You're the worst zombie apocalypse partner. It is you. You would be among the first to die, 'Zee." Gamzee rested his cheek on top of Tavros' head. His laughter was warm in Tavros' hair.

"Nah, my brother, I'd be up and makin' friends with all them stumblin' fuckers. We'd make motherfuckin' daisy crowns and have a commune out in the middle of a sequoia forest somewhere. It'd be motherfuckin' bitchtits, Tav, and you'd be the Queen of the commune." Tavros laughed against his neck, nestling down against him and spreading his legs enough that their knees knocked together.

"I'm pretty certain that, communes don't have Queens." Gamzee tched against his scalp, sending a shiver across his head, goosebumps tightening his skin.

"Ours would. We'd outfit you in the brightest fauna in the forest, and make you a towering crown with fern fronds and motherfuckin' tiger lilies and shit."

"Can I have a mask made out of a bull skull? The kind with the really big horns, like the clown on your wall?" Gamzee was grinning against Tavros' temple and Tavros was pretty sure dudes didn't do this with friends, no matter how baked out of their minds they were.

"Anything you want, my brother. Ritual sacrifice ending in a bleached fuckin' mask and a bull hide cape, you'll be up and goddamn resplendent in your finery. We'll worship you arbitrarily at random times of day, calculated by some mile long algorithm." Tavros' next sentence was cut off by Karkat screaming at the television as a Witch ambushed him, hunched forward and furiously hitting buttons as if the harder he hit them the more powerful the attack would be.

"Peace, motherfuckin' best friend. It's just a game."

"Fuck every goddamn bottle of Faygo with have in this shithole, Gamzee. This is goddamn Zombie War and you're canoodling instead of doing your best friend duty and helping me." Tavros' face heated up, but Gamzee just lifted his head and slung an arm around Tavros' wide shoulders.

"Nothing wrong with a little righteous snuggling between bros, best friend. If you weren't so up and agitated, you could come join this comfort jam."

"Button your flapping maw, twat spot. If I can't enlist you to kill hordes of vomiting, stinking undead then you're nothing to me." Gamzee tucked his long, thin limbs around Tavros and pressed his nose into his thick, fluffy mohawk.

"Your loss, bro."

"You two are sickeningly touchy when you're baked."

"Best way to be, Karkat, now up and save us from zombies." Karkat played on, furiously assaulting zombies and wearing the buttons down on his wireless controller. Gamzee and Tavros watched, making offhand comments until Karkat snarled something about "titty sucking, tea bagging turkey fuckers" and set them off on an explosion of laughter, Tavros curling up around his sore abdomen and begging to make it stop through his laughter.

Tavros slept in Gamzee's bed, as was planned. Tavros was tucked up against the wall when Gamzee sauntered in from the bathroom, the tips of messy curls wet and his face freshly scrubbed of thick face paint. They kept a careful space between them under musty bedcovers, knees touching when they shifted and facing one another.

"Can I ask you something?" Tavros whispered, voice catching on the ragged edges of a giggle fit.

"Yeah, Tavbro, you can up and ask me anything." Tavros reached out and brushed his fingertips across Gamzee's cheekbone. Gamzee's breath caught and Tavros had to tighten the muscles in his abdomen to keep himself from moving across the bed and taking his mouth.

"Why do you wear the face paint? I, um, not saying I don't like it, or anything. I'm just curious." Gamzee shifted a bit, his cheek warm beneath Tavros' fingers. His eyes were impossibly dark and deep, glittering in the shaft of half light from the street.

"I don't really know. The clowns liked it when I was a kid, so I just kind of kept it up. It up and feels strange when I'm out and not wearin' it." His voice was quiet and husky and vulnerable, his olive skin bleached alabaster in the darkness.

"The clowns? Like the ones on your walls?" He looked over the curve of Gamzee's cheekbone, the black snarl of curls, to look at the twisting, sharp toothed mural.

"Yeah. They're like the gods of a different universe. They know their shit, used to preach to me about miracles and the Dark Carnival and the Vast Honk. Mirthful motherfuckin' messiahs." Something twisted deep in Tavros' belly like a dagger he'd forgotten was there. Gamzee's eyes looked open and gaunt, pupils blown across bloodshot scleras.

"Oh." Gamzee's body tensed at the noise, barely an exhalation from Tavros' throat. He pulled his knees away, curled into himself, bit his bottom lip and tore his gaze away. Tavros placed his hand against Gamzee's neck, fingers stroking at the miniscule curlicues against the nape of his neck.

"Okay." Gamzee melted against the mattress, a quiet breath whooshing out of his lungs in obvious relief. Their knees met again, the top of Tavros' foot pressed against Gamzee's bony shin. He grinned, dimples swathed in bottomless shadows, reaching up and tweaking the silver barbel in Tavros' nose. Tavros laughed and butted his hand with his nose, sniffing at the dull ache in his recently pierced septum.

They fell asleep as the sun was lighting the sky, cautious body parts pressed together, under the watch of a pantheon of Gods painted into the drywall.

Tavros woke up to the distant sounds of the television and the smell of frying bacon. His face was pressed into Gamzee's pillow, spread across the mattress as if he'd slept alone the entire night.

"Rise and motherfuckin' shine, Tavbro, it's a glorious new day." Tavros looked up at Gamzee with betrayed, bleary eyes.

"Why do you hate me?" Gamzee laughed, sitting on the edge of the bed and sliding a plate of fried eggs and toast across the rumpled sheets. Tavros kicked the blankets off and grabbed a sausage with his fingers, biting off half of it and humming as he swallowed.

"Okay, you might not hate me, but it's early morning and for some unknown reason, I'm awake." He shoved an entire piece of bacon in his mouth, grabbing the plate and settling it in the space between his crossed legs.

"You're awake because the sun is motherfuckin' shining like the warmest, happiest miracle the earth has ever up and seen. Also because no one likes rubbery, cold eggs, bro." Tavros stacked two eggs on a buttery piece of toast and sunk his teeth in, humming as he chewed and looking up at Gamzee's painted grin.

"You are easily my favorite human. We need to, seriously think about getting married, because if anyone's going to be my housewife it'll be you." Gamzee leaned back and laughed, laying across the mattress with his head on Tavros' knee.

"Yeah, Tavbro? I'll sit at home baked as a fuckin' apple pie all day, slaving over a hot stove and doing your laundry. How many kids are you gonna expect me to pop out?" Tavros noticed a small clump of grey paint in the end of on of his curls; he picked it out and tossed it at the garbage bin in the corner of the room.

"I'm thinking two. We can have a girl and a boy. I'm certain you'll look beautiful pregnant, all glowing and stuff." Gamzee picked half a sausage off Tavros' plate, chewing around his grin.

"Yeah? You sure you're not going to lose interest when I get fat from birthing wriggling little kids?" Tavros tucked a curl behind Gamzee's ear, flicking his gauged earlobe.

"How could you say that? My feelings for you are so genuine. I would never lose interest, not even when you have baby stretch marks. They will make me even more attracted to you, because they're from my loins, or something."

"Looks like we're going to have to elope and get married in a fuckin' chapel somewhere in Vegas, bro. You've up and plucked my heartstrings, I'll never love another again." Tavros choked breathing in runny egg yolk, setting his toast down and coughing it out of his windpipe.

"You okay, Tav? Don't go killing yourself, I know it's up and hilarious but you don't gotta asphyxiate yourself over it." Tavros was glad that he was choking, because he wasn't sure he'd be able to feign laughter when his stomach had bottomed out and his heart was halfway to cracking his ribs. Gamzee brought him a glass of water and patted his shoulder as he coughed, red faced and eyes watering. When it was clear that Tavros wasn't going to keel over, Gamzee ruffled his sleep squished mohawk and set out for the parlor.

Tavros curled up in Gamzee's bed and pressed his face into Gamzee's pillow and tried not to perish of embarrassment.

The days spiraled past in a haze of good weed, better food, and the best company. Gamzee cooked breakfast and dinner and endured Tavros' barrage of housewife jokes, whipped up amazing meals like it was nothing while Karkat and Tavros devoured everything like a slobbering, half starved pack of dogs. He created the strangest munchies snacks Tavros had ever sampled, consuming desert tacos and chicken parmesan pizza in Gamzee's bed while the sun came up.

He was consistently in Gamzee's space. Whenever he wasn't at work, Tavros would have his chin on Gamzee's shoulder or press himself against his torso or sit between his legs and rest his head on Gamzee's knee. The only word to describe his behavior was "clingy." He cringed a bit and chastised himself, but it did no good when Gamzee would sling his arm over Tavros' shoulders and press his painted cheek against his buzzed scalp. Gamzee's last night at the library landed half way through the week, which gave Tavros another eight hours in the day to sprawl across Gamzee's lap and toke up and play violent video games.

"You know what's motherfuckin' nice? I get paid more than when I was working twice as often."

"Way to rub it in, assbutt."

"You're getting dinner every night out of this here situation, best friend."

"Shut the fuck up, Jesus Christ."

"You know I'm right."

"I know I'm going to punch you in the fucking jaw if you don't bite your tongue."

"You're far too invested in nomming on that enchilada to raise a fist against me, brother."

"Wow, shut up, both of you. Just eat the food and stop whining."

Sunday evening was coming fast, looming in the close future, and Tavros was not looking forward to boarding a tiny airplane to live at home for four months. The week had spun by in a veritable tilt-a-whirl, and Saturday night found the three of them curled up in the two chairs on the balcony taking hits off the bong after a particularly tasty feed of Mexican fare. Tavros' mouth was still tingling from hot sauce and chilies as he sucked back a long toke.

"Seriously, though, I'm thinking about dressing up as Jesus for Halloween this year." Karkat was slouched back in his chair, eyes half lidded and his expression edging closer and closer to a grin.

"Yeah? Do you want me to, go tell it on a mountain or something? I could get a stuffed lamb, dress up like Moses." Gamzee choked on his pull, laughing as Karkat lit up.

"Man, Tav, that would be the fucking tits. We could do a whole religious thing. Gamzee can be the Pope."

"I'd love to join you motherfuckers on this Jesusween." There was a stunned silence before Tavros nearly fell backwards off Gamzee's lap laughing, Karkat bent forward and laughing into his folded arms. The bong was forgotten, the bowl burning out on the ground while Tavros actually slapped his knees and Gamzee buried his face into Tavros' armpit. Their peals of laughter echoed in the covered balcony, ricocheting into the night like a cage of birds released. They'd nearly had their laughter under control when Karkat wheezed, "Jesusween!" and started the giggling off again.

"We could dress up as hotdogs and have a weenieween."

"Or dachshunds, and have a weinerween."

"No, man, we'll motherfuckin' go in anime cosplay and have a weabooween."

"Or, uh, items that wobble but don't fall down. Weebleween."

"I am going to fucking weeble_wheeze_ if we don't stop this conversation soon." That started up another round that left Tavros gasping for breath, Gamzee laughing against his collarbone and rubbing his back in gentle circles.

The rest of the final night consisted of sun dried tomato pancakes that tasted sinfully good with cream cheese, watching Karkat tear up at badly lit romcoms, and a final toke before collapsing into bed and sleeping like logs.

For the first time all week, Tavros woke up with his face against Gamzee's neck. He was used to being woken up with breakfast in bed, Gamzee already put together as he attempted to gather his thoughts and open his eyes. Waking up with Gamzee was exceedingly nice; he wondered if they'd slept like that every night, curled up around one another with their legs tangled, leeching body heat and physical comfort. He wondered if Gamzee woke up in the morning and gently disengaged, pulling himself out of their warm embrace to shower and cook pancakes in his boxers.

Tavros squeezed Gamzee's thin torso once before sitting up and wriggling out of bed, scratching his stomach and padding across the hallway to the bathroom. When he emerged, teeth brushed and trouser snake drained, Gamzee was standing in the middle of the room and stretching, blinds pulled open and letting sunlight tumble in through the window, splashed across the walls and glinting in Gamzee's snarled nest of hair.

"Mornin', motherfucker." His voice was strained from sleep and stretching his chest, like velvet wrapped gravel. Tavros wanted to reach over and touch the throat that produced that noise, head tipping back as he yawned.

"I'm up and feeling a few bitchtits fuckin' cartoons, brosky. It's fuckin' Sunday, after all." Tavros stared at him for a moment more before bursting out into laughter, punching Gamzee's bony shoulder before grabbing a pair of sweatpants.

"We better have cereal in this place, man. Can't watch cartoons, without a healthy helping of cereal."

"I love to eat cereal when I'm watching my cartoons." Tavros' laughter multiplied, volume hitching.

"I love Fruity Pebbles when I'm watching my cartoons," Tavros replied, rapping to the same beat Gamzee started in.

"I love Super Sugar Crisp when I'm watching my cartoons."

"I love Count Chocula when I'm watching my cartoons."

"Let's go!"

"Pour the milk in the bowl."

"Make sure it's ice cold."

"Put my hand over top so it don't overflow." They rapped at each other en route to the kitchen, shoving at each other and laughing as Gamzee produced two massive silver mixing bowls and opened the corner cupboard, crouched down in front of it.

"Take your motherfuckin' pick, Tavbro, but if you get your paws up on my Apple Jacks there will be hell to pay."

"Shit, is that Cinnamon Toast Crunch?"

The two of them end up on the couch with seven half-boxes of cereal between them, all mixed up in the seemingly bottomless bowls and drowned in about two liters of milk. Spongebob was laughing like an obnoxious tit on the television and they were both giggling, high from nothing but a full night's sleep and their final afternoon together. Tavros' suitcases were already packed up and ready to go, a comfortable change of clothing out for his evening flight.

They shoveled cereal in their mouths through Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents and Teen Titans, different types of cereal saturating with milk at different speeds. They had to wrestle Karkat for the remote once he'd actually woken up, but two against one is almost certain to yield a remote. Even when one of the two is skinny as a rail and lazy.

They blinked and the sun had sunk in the sky, hands on the clock speeding along until it was absolutely necessary that they went to the airport. Instead of stealing Eridan's car again, Tavros and Gamzee took the skytrain. Which was less of a train in the sky and more of a monorail on a track. A heated discussion on the misleading name of the transportation device ensued; they voiced their disappointment loudly and ignored wide eyed stares from various other people on the train.

When it was imperative for Tavros to go through security, Gamzee clung to his shoulders and hugged him harder than Tavros could actually remember Gamzee hugging. He rubbed his hands up and down Gamzee's back, burying his face in Gamzee's neck. Gamzee squeezed him wordlessly, petting at espresso brown hair before pulling at it gently, dropping a kiss on Tavros' forehead.

"'S just a few months, right?" Gamzee's voice was quiet and vulnerable and something in Tavros' chest broke, shifted, flared brightly.

"And then I'll be back," Tavros agreed, resting his hands against the small of Gamzee's back. What little space between them was warm, charged; everything felt intimate and Tavros was suddenly inexplicably irritated, jealous with the people around them who were witnessing their goodbye.

"You better keep in touch, motherfucker." The quiet sadness had dissipated, a tiny grin pulling at his lips.

"As much as I can. I promise." Tavros leaned forward and brushed his lips against Gamzee's cheek. The contact was electric. His face felt hot, felt like pins and needles.

When they parted, Tavros looked back until he couldn't see Gamzee anymore. He looked lost and forlorn; gangly and painted and waving with long, elegant hands.

Tavros wound through line ups until he was sitting in his seat in the plane. His heart sunk into the soles of his feet the closer he got to home, trying to figure out why he felt like he was leaving Gamzee for dead.


	6. Drift Into A Deep Fog, Lost

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gamzee or Karkat or Tavros or Homestuck, as I'm not nearly as fly as Andrew Hussie. However, I do own the hours spent writing and researching this monstrosity.

**Pairings**: Gamzee/Tavros main. Various other pairings to float around in the background.

**Warnings:** Blatant fluff and adorableness, boy/boy situations, future boy/girl and girl/girl situations, recreational drug use and references to stoner culture, serious psychological illnesses, abuse of multitudes of cliches, mediocre to awful rap battles, filthy language, varying creativity of insults, Gamzee cooking, Karkat being a little bitch, Gamzee's obsession with clowns, **child abuse, child neglect, female on male rape.**

**Summary:** Gamzee's life revolves around his spit fire of a roommate, stabbing people full of holes, and a boy who lives in the stacks of the library. Unfortunately, he's also tied to a bottle of pills that sits so unassumingly in his bathroom cabinet.

**Author would like you to note:**

This chapter was really hard for me to write and I apologize for the huge wait. However, good news! So there's this Gamzee ask blog that the beautiful terminallycapricious420 and myself have collaborated on (please check my profile for details!). Gamzee answers questions and every once in a while Tavros and Karkat show up! So if you have any questions for him, float on over there and drop it in the ass box! It's worth your time, I promise~

Tavros' siblings names all mean bull in various languages. I derived "Saura" from Arabic; I had to go on sound alone because of the whole Arabic alphabet thing kicking me in the ass.

Title from Satellite Mind - Metric. I was going to call it "When I'm Bored I Send Vibrations In Your Direction" to reference them texting as often as humanly possible, but it sounded naughty. And this is a decidedly not naughty chapter. So.

**Also, please regard the newly added warnings.**

I'm so sorry.

* * *

Tavros stared out the airplane window and tried to blink away the apathy. He hadn't even landed and he was losing himself to waves disinterest, shrouding himself in it like a cloak, like armor. He pressed his forehead against the cold window and watched the lights of the small city grow, pulling away when his skin had numbed. He drew greasy patterns in the oil left behind on the plexiglass. He tucked the beads of his septum piercing into his nostrils with frigid finger tips. He tried not to think of Gamzee's careful, elegant hands doing it for him. Dread compounded in his stomach until he felt ill; he nearly had to scrabble for the barf bag when the aircraft bounced over the tarmac.

Tavros was met at the single terminal airport by his mother and youngest sibling. His mother's almond eyes were brimming with overly dramatic tears when he hugged her; Bou grinned and fiddled with the cuffs of his long sleeves, engaging in a quick embrace.

Tavros noticed a bracelet of dark bruising around Bou's wrist when he reached out to help him with his luggage. The acid in his stomach boiled, bile creeping up his throat. His mood settled black inside his brain, curling up into a caliginous knot tucked away into grey matter as he worked through his mother's barrage of questions.

His flight had landed at nine in the evening and was followed by an hour-and-a-half long drive out to the White Bison reserve. The cab of his mother's truck filled up with her warm voice, aimless chatter about the eight months worth of drama that Tavros had thankfully missed while he was away. It smelled like peach cigars and tanning supplies and gun powder.

Tavros tried to ignore the way Bou sat in the backseat, curled into himself, small and quiet and unassuming. Bile bubbled in his throat when he thought of the dark purple marks squeezed into his dark skin. He knew Bou had been home less than 24 hours. He spoke a silent prayer that his younger sister was staying with their older sister and her husband, across the reserve.

His stomach was growling by the time they pulled into the reserve, driving down shoddily lit, gravel roads. His mother turned the headlights off before turning into the driveway. Tavros felt his heart speed up, hands trembling, palms clammy despite the biting cold of the May evening.

Your father's asleep, she said. Stay quiet, don't wake him up.

_Your father's been drinking again, creep along the sidelines, stay in the dark, don't rouse the monster he can smell you in the shadows. _

Bou struggled with trying to pull the smaller suitcase out of the box, teeth chattering and breath coming out in white puffs. Tavros ruffled his hair and grinned, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. Tavros hefted both suitcases under thick biceps; they weren't terribly heavy and he was more than strong enough.

Their mother opened the screen door and Bou tripped over himself to press his palm over the rusty hinge, silencing a high pitched squeal. He winced as it pinched his palm. His hand would be bruised at best, cut open and bleeding at worst, but his naked expression of relief made Tavros want to vomit.

No one said anything.

The silence was oppressive. It was a living thing, wet fabric draped over noses and left there to suffocate.

Tavros was a ghost in the hallway. The television was flickering in the darkness, his father's snoring loud enough to drown out whatever game show was playing. Tavros slipped into his old bedroom, untouched for eight months. He put one suitcase in the closet and the other on the floor, pulling out toiletries and boxers to sleep in.

Everything within the confines smelled like Gamzee; the musky smell of weed, Old Spice body wash, disinfectant, the thick, chemical tang of paint. Tavros' stomach dropped and, though they'd been together less than four hours previous, he missed him with a bone-deep ache.

_hEY, bRO, i'M HOME SAFE,_

He ignored the irony, the fact that home hadn't been safe for a long time.

Tavros quietly crept into the small bathroom, closing the door before turning on the light. He brushed his teeth, scrubbed his face with a wet washcloth, stumbled back into his room.

Bou was standing in the center of the room, wearing sweatpants that were four sizes too large for his small frame, hugging his torso. He jumped when Tavros slipped through the doorway, a nervous smile on his face.

"Can I-"

"Yeah."

Tavros turned the lights off and they curled up in his bed, face to face. They talked in hushed whispers under the comforter, talking about how the year had gone, about Bou's new girlfriend who was spending the summer in Toronto with her family, about Dave and Terezi and Jade and John. They regularly aired out their hot, stagnant bubble under the blankets.

They resolutely ignored the topic of inebriated fathers with ham fists and the choking cover of uncertainty.

Bou asked about Vriska and Tavros waved it off.

Tavros didn't tell him about Gamzee.

_fUcKiNg Eh My BrOtHeR. wAs ThE fLiGhT mOtHeRfUcKiN sPiRiTuAl?_

The light from Tavros' cell phone lit up the space between mattress and blanket, lit up Tavros' grin as he replied.

"Who is it?" Bou asked, no longer picking at his fingernails, his smile reaching his eyes again.

"A friend from school," Tavros answered, preoccupied with typing out a reply.

"A _girl_friend?" Even though he was whispering, the implication was clear. Tavros rolled his eyes.

"Nope, a giant loser dude friend."

_oH, yOU KNOW IT, mY RIGHTEOUS BRO,_

_i HAD A RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT, aND EVERYTHING,_

_sTARTED PREACHING THE GOSPEL, fROM THE INTERCOM,_

Bou looked like he was about to say something, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his lips, when there was a creak from the hallway. Their attention snapped to the door. Tavros clamped his phone in his armpit in case it vibrated. They fell completely still, perfectly silent, barely breathing. The world had been reduced to the harsh sound of air filtering out of lungs, hearts pumping too loud in their ears, stumbling footsteps echoing just outside.

He shuffled past the door.

He fell against the wall and swore. Bou flinched, curling into himself, pressing himself closer to the wall as if it would swallow him into the drywall, hide him.

Tavros let out the barest sigh when the door at the end of the hallway opened and slammed shut, signifying their father's retreat into his bedroom. Bou was shaking. Tavros put an arm over his shoulders and hugged him tightly.

They didn't say anything. They didn't need to. Tavros turned his phone off and he fell into the doze of someone too on edge to properly sleep.

* * *

_There were monsters in his closet. _

_He tried to tell his mommy, he did, he tried to make her listen but she laughed him off, grounded him when he was too insistent, when he didn't stop trying. _

_The monster in his closet smelled like beer and days old sweat. It hurt him, pushed him around when the sun went down and left dark bruises blooming across his arms and stomach. It would pull him out of bed and smack him around until he was a shivering pile on the ground, cowering in the corner. _

_His mommy ignored the marks on his body. _

_Mommy ignored the marks on Taureau and Saura, too. Taureau would pull him and Saura into her bedroom on bad nights, but the monster lived in all three of their closets. Taureau would protect them from the monster, giving him enough time to pull Saura under the bed with him and curl around her. _

_Sometimes Taureau would manage to hold the monster's attention. _

_Other times Taureau would fall in a bloody, whimpering heap on the floor. The monster would fish under the bed until it found his back, his ankle, pull him from his hiding hole and beat him to the soundtrack of his baby sister's sobbing, his older sister's quiet whines and pleads for him to stop. _

_He remembered mommy bandaging his face in the bathroom, setting his arm in a tight sling when his shoulder burned and he could barely breathe without crying. Mommy cupped his face and kissed his forehead, told him that daddy didn't mean it, that he just needed to stay out of daddy's way. Told him that he didn't want his mommy and daddy separating, did he? _

_He shook his head and tried to stop crying, holding his arm tight to his torso, sniffing back blood and tasting it like dirty pennies in the back of his throat. _

_(When they went into the hospital six days later, the doctor told him he had a broken collarbone. She was nice, with gentle, warm hands and a soothing voice and short, shiny brown hair that smelled nice when she moved. She asked him how it happened.)_

_(He looked over her shoulder and saw mommy's desperate stare. He told her that he fell off the tippy top of the jungle gym playing Grounders.) _

_(The kind doctor with the gentle hands glared at his mommy when they left the room with a new butterfly sling and a prescription for the pain. Daddy took the pills the moment they got home.)_

_His daddy came in almost every night. _

_Taureau kept him and his two siblings in her room most nights. Especially after three year old Bou ended up with a concussion because his father was tired of hearing him cry._

_He wished it was a monster. _

_He wondered it maybe he wished hard enough, it would come true._

* * *

Tavros woke in the morning to twelve texts, seven missed calls, and three voice mails.

Two texts were from Gamzee.

Everything else was from Vriska.

He suppressed a shiver despite the stale sweat making fabric stick to his skin and ignored Vriska's unsubtle, and perhaps slightly obsessive, modes of courtship.

_mAaAaAaAn, ThAt WoUlD hAvE bEeN tHe MoSt RiGhTeOuS oF SeRmOnS, mY bRoThEr. I hOpE yOu KePt ThOsE sInNeRs In ThE tHrAlL oF yOuR sIcKnAsTy RhYmEs, TaVbRo! :o)_

_A bRoThEr'S gOtTa HiT tHe FuCkInG sAcK, tHoUgH. sWeEt MoThErFuCkInG dReAmS, tAv._

Tavros checked to make sure Bou was still asleep before letting the silly grin spread across his face. He traced the text with his fingertips.

_sORRY, i FELL ASLEEP, bUT I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL,_

The lie felt blasphemous without even saying it out loud, despite the fact that it was partway the truth. He'd made a point to never lie to Gamzee before. He wondered how many lies would fill the space between them in the span of a single day.

_aLSO, tHERE'S STILL SNOW ON THE GROUND, wHICH IS KIND OF LAME, bECAUSE IT'S PRETTY COLD, _

_tHAT'S WHAT YOU GET, fOR LIVING IN THE NORTH, i GUESS,_

His stomach gurgled loud enough to make his attention snap back to the door. Tavros laughed breathlessly to himself, rubbing a hand over his whining abdomen. He felt uneasy afterwards, heart beating hard in its thoracic imprisonment from the shock of adrenaline the sudden noise sent bursting through his neurons.

Tavros wriggled out of his bed as carefully as possibly, hell bent on letting Bou stay asleep. He crept to his suitcase, pulled a long sleeved shirt over his head, and slipped out the door.

Breakfast was dry handfuls of cereal straight from the box. That door at the end of the hallway was firmly closed. Tavros didn't want to make any undue noise that would cause it to open prematurely. He padded out onto the deck, careful with the screeching hinge of the screen door, and sat on the dilapidated porch swing. He leaned back with his phone in his palm, skimming over Vriska's texts but not really absorbing any of the words. She would want to see him that night. She was probably pissed that he hadn't messaged her to tell her he was coming back. His phone vibrated as a new text came in. Tavros grinned at the screen as he opened the message.

_MaN, tHaT iS AlL kInDs Of MiRaCuLoUs! I hAvEn'T sEeN pRoPeR sNoW iN yEaRs. MaKe A mOtHeRfUcKiNg SnOw AnGeL tAvBrO!_

_hAHAHA, sADLY THERE ISN'T ENOUGH SNOW, fOR AN ACTIVITY OF THAT MAGNITUDE, iT'S JUST WHATEVER HAS RESISTED MELTING THROUGH THE SPRING,_

Tavros bit his lip and tried to temper his smile. It wouldn't do for someone to see him grinning at his phone like that, not when they'd ask who he was talking to, when there was a risk of him saying "friendship" and people hearing "faggot." And yet he couldn't help a grin when his phone vibrated again.

_wElL mOtHeRfUcK, tHaT's FaLsE aDvErTiSiNg DuDe. I wAnT mY mOnEy BaCk!_

_sORRY, sIR, tHE DEPOSIT SPECIFICALLY SAYS, nON-REFUNDABLE,_

_i CAN OFFER YOU AN IN-STORE REBATE, tHOUGH,_

He was going to have to lie. Two texts in and he was grinning like the silliest motherfucker in the Northern hemisphere. His cheeks felt like they were straining.

Georgia was a girl's name. But maybe something with similar vowel sounds, too; give himself room to pick himself up if he tripped up. Maybe Garrette?

_yOu ArE a ScOuNdReL aNd A fRaUd._

_I aCcEpT yOuR rEbAtE. i'M gOnNa ScOrE sOmE bItChTiTs sWeEt LoOt At ThE tAvBrO gIfT sHoP :o)_

_i DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH SWEET STUFF I HAVE IN STOCK, bUT YOU'RE WELCOME TO PERUSE THE SHELVES, _

_gODSPEED, bRAVE SOLDIER,_

His breath came out of his mouth in long, hazy puffs. Frozen vapor danced in the cold, morning air; he watched the gelid molecules shiver and swirl away. It reminded him of Christmas, of hot beverages and rainy weather and Dave drinking too much eggnog and passing out on the bathroom floor in reindeer boxers and green suspenders and not much else.

He remembered how Terezi drew across the lanky span of his shoulders with red pen, disjointed crimson squiggles mapped out with blind eyes and a grin sharper than a ceremonial sword. He remembered Dave waking up with a thin French mustache and shaving cream smeared across his torso from his own traitorous hand and an expression of utmost betrayal. He remembered John and Jade laughing themselves hoarse, the sounds ricocheting off of the walls, pleasant in his ears.

He didn't want to be there, sitting on a dilapidated deck constructed with rotting wood and chipping paint and freezing his ass off.

But funding was funding was a full ride scholarship to any university in the world, and if it was necessary to go back to the shit hole he was raised in every summer, he would do it. Even though it was a needless requirement. Even if returning home was the last thing he wanted to do.

His phone vibrated again and he failed horrifically when he tried not to smile. He'd just have to enjoy the little things.

* * *

"Morning, son." Tavros' entire body seized, muscles contracting hard enough to turn coal to diamond. The voice and the genial greeting were like a bullet to the gut, pain radiating outwards from the epicenter, bodily juices flooding the hollowed cavity of his abdomen and eating through his flesh. His voice rasped out of a throat long-ravaged by the slow burn of disappointment and forty proof liquor; it was like a series of lashes followed up by a fist to the face.

"Morning, dad." Tavros didn't look at him. He continued on his merry sandwich making, layering sliced lunchmeat and veggies and cheese and keeping his tense body very much turned away. He heard the fridge open, heard the telltale clink of sepia glass muffled by moist, peeling labels. The sound of him gulping down the bitter swill made Tavros' gag reflex jump. A quick glance at the stovetop displayed the time; 11:04 am.

The empty bottle was set on the counter. A second and third were removed from the shelf in the refrigerator, along with a container of left over Chinese.

"How was school?" He asked as if Tavros was a child and coming home from play school, rather than returning after eight months away. Tavros grimaced when he caught sight of his father out of the corner of his eye, grimy boxers and a stained robe over his shoulders, flapping open around his naked stomach. He was a chapped husk, spindly legs and a sagging gut, a festering vessel for hops and barley.

"It was good." Short, polite answers were key. The ancient microwave dinged and his father threw the door open, gingerly taking the container with thick, bumbling fingers unused to any movement more complex than wrapping around the neck of a glass bottle. He nodded before taking his beer and his food out to the living room to collapse in the armchair and putrefy, a septic wound seeping into the upholstery.

Tavros left like a specter, bare feet quiet against cracked linoleum and pilled, discoloured carpeting. He sat on the floor cross legged and ate his sandwich, Bou still snoring from his bed.

His phone went off.

_I know you're awake, dum8ass. Answer my texts!_

_If you d8n't mess8ge me 8ack I'm going to just c8me over. _

_May8e I'll just come over anyways ::::)_

Tavros ran a hand over his face, eyes pinched shut and a hand cupped over his mouth.

_mEET ME AT THE, cOMMUNITY BUILDING, _

_iN AN HOUR, i GUESS,_

_Ugh, so boooooooring! _

_tAKE IT, oR LEAVE IT, vRISKA,_

_F8ne._

With an air like he'd just resigned himself to hang on the gallows, Tavros picked himself off of the floor and gathered toiletries and clean clothing, heading for the bathroom. Maybe if he was lucky he could drown himself in the shower.

* * *

_Vriska Serket was probably the prettiest girl who lived on the reserve. She was all fakey blue contacts and navy lipstick and robin egg blue mascara, hair bleached white and tinted aquamarine and Cookie Monster blue. _

_Despite the strange obsession with blue and her abrasive attitude, it was not hard to want Vriska. She had the kind of body that 90% of girls would die for, all exposed ribs and hipbones and an inch wide gap between her thighs paired with DDs and an ass that you could actually bounce a quarter off of. She dressed herself in skin tight jeans, metallic leggings, artistically shredded shirts that showed her extensive collection of blue bras. _

_Vriska Serket could have anyone she wanted, on the reserve or in the city that they went to school in, an hour long bus ride each way but fuck, was it worth it. Vriska Serket had the AAA hockey team wrapped around her fingers, the volleyball team at her beck and call, the basketball team groveling at her feet. People speculated how many people she'd slept with; she brushed off insults with an infuriating smirk and a well placed verbal lashing. _

_And for some reason, Vriska Serket wanted shy, short, nose-constantly-in-a-book Tavros Nitram. _

_It was mystifying to the majority of their middle school population, not to mention Tavros himself. _

_He found himself uninterested by Vriska and her dramatics. He let himself be dragged to parties and sports meets, sipped on beer, and kept to himself. Vriska would be infuriated when he didn't participate in the social gatherings, when he left early. Vriska was painfully beautiful, yes, and Tavros had found himself thinking about her more than a few times at night, breath loud in his ears and desperate to finish before the monsters filed into the room and made him bleed. _

_And yet he was indifferent. _

_Even when he'd drank a bit too much in tenth grade, when she'd pushed him back against the couch and settled over him, jeggings hanging off of one ankle, hands down the front of his jeans while he asked her to stop. _

_He was indifferent as she moaned and settled their hips together, as she rocked her hips and rucked his shirt up and painted his mouth blue with sloppy kisses. _

_He was indifferent the next weekend, and the Wednesday after that, and every time afterwards. He stared at the ceiling and let shaking hands settle on her hips and thrust up and let his mind go as blank as a fresh blanket of snow. He didn't care. _

_He didn't care._

* * *

"Wow, Tavros. Planning on changing your name to Beefcakes? Because it would be totally fitting, look at those shoulders." Vriska Serket was as sexy as ever, eyes lined with dark kohl and blue bangs falling into her face.

"Yeah. That's, uh, obviously the plan of action. I clearly need to embody my first name. Tavros just isn't good enough." Vriska stepped forward until she conquered his personal bubble, tweaking his chin and settling a hand against his chest.

_I don't care._

He thought about Gamzee, the way his face would (might) fall if he could see.

"How long are you here for?" Her voice was meant to be an enticing purr. Something pulled in his stomach, made acid crawl through the membrane of his stomach and drain into his arteries.

"I go out to the ranch in, um, a week." Her grin was sharp like splintered glass, like wood chips and hot sauce rubbed into lacerations.

"Well I guess we have a lot of catching up to do in a week, don't we?"

* * *

_Vriska's legs are spread and she has new tattoos on her thighs, thick bands of Haida art as black and red garters etched into her skin despite her Cree heritage. _

_The ink is beautiful. _

_He shuts his eyes. _

_He sinks into her and pretends that her soft skin is washed out olive. _

_Pretends that her skin settles directly over bone, no padding to speak of. _

_Pretends that he don't hate this. _

_He doesn't hate this. _

_He doesn't care. _

_He doesn't care. _

_He doesn't fucking care._

* * *

Tavros went to the ranch with a black eye and two strained fingers, strapped together at the knuckles with medical tape. His boss rolled his eyes and muttered a long, quiet diatribe about boys and their fighting.

Tavros just shrugged and struggled stacking with the saddles. He jarred his fingers more than a few times, but he bit his tongue. It only took them a few days to heal. The odd shooting pain was easy enough to ignore while working with the horses.

The ranch was one of the very few good things about being home; it may even be the best, barring visiting his sisters and brother. Ten hours a day, seven days a week, with no telephone service and a two hour drive from the reserve. If it hadn't been for a lack of contact with Gamzee, it would have been nigh perfect.

There were forty thoroughbred horses interspersed between four stables; mares, geldings, stallions and colts. Tavros groomed each of them once a day, plus three daily feedings and sweeping out the stalls. He cleaned all of the riding equipment and ensured that the leathers were oiled and kept from cracking.

All time that wasn't spent on his duties was spent riding the horses and day dreaming in hay piles.

He lived there for the majority of the summer, muscles thickening until his clothing was tight across the expanse of his body. The time passed quickly, day after day of manual labor facilitating deep, dreamless sleeps.

He went home for two days every two weeks and stayed at his sister's house, where Bou had moved in after a night in the emergency room and nineteen stitches in his right shoulder. He laid around Taureau's house, crashing on the couch and playing relationship-crushing games of Mario Kart with Saura. Floods of text messages would come in once he'd enter range of service, goofy jokes and stories from Gamzee and angry rants from Karkat (generally about Gamzee) and raps from Dave and little "thinking of you" messages from Jade.

His nights were monopolized by Vriska.

She was the prettiest girl on the reserve. Every single boy wanted her. He felt like he should be grateful to her, thanking her for raising his social status from pariah to tolerated weirdo.

He wished she would sleep with one of the dudes who begged for her attention instead.

(And yet nothing was wrong, nothing at all, not when he felt like vomiting afterwards, not when he felt like _nothing_ afterwards, not when he actually groaned and fucked her into the mattress the few times she'd taken her contacts out and her eyes were so fucking dark, tenebrous pits carved with malicious words and harpy claws but he could almost imagine the charm and affection he wanted so desperately, tangled black curls and a throaty chuckle-)

(He got off on it, he finished nigh every time with her whether her shitty cerulean contacts were in or not, he didn't outright say no anymore.)

(Nothing was wrong.)

(He didn't care.)

The horses were tended to and the cash in his bank account piled up and he only got smacked around a few times by his dad.

His mom only guilted him into going home three times.

He only got the shit beat out of him once after he went to the ranch. It was a pretty monumental beat down. Once he got back to the ranch, his boss's wife patched him up and fussed over him and refused to let him work for three days. His boss was miffed, but apparently what Nepeta said was law. Equius didn't say anything.

Nepeta diffused the situation by telling him that Equius loved caring for the horses, anyways. She also brought him kittens to play with and fed him about three times as much as he needed to eat and was loathe to let him out of bed.

It was nice to be looked after.

Over those three days, he missed Gamzee so much his stomach cramped.

He wondered if there was anything even remotely desirable left about him, if Gamzee missed him as badly as he did.

* * *

Tavros had Taureau drive him to the airport at the end of the summer. It was easier than going home and seeing his parents.

(His mom who'd done so much for him and yet done nothing at all, too in love with a husband who treated her like gold and ground their children into the floorboards, too busy trying to relive the years they'd had before children, before his dad was injured on the job and took to drinking and the same angry outbursts Tavros' grandfather had been prone to, fucked up immeasurably from residential schools and far too much abuse to be a functioning member of society, yet alone a proper dad.)

Saura gifted him with a handful of bracelets knotted from dyed hemp. She grinned as she tied them around his wrists, eyes swimming because _I'm going to miss you so much, big brother, maybe we can all get together for Christmas this year_.

She'd made a few that she wouldn't put on him, one red and shades of charcoal and square chunks of hematite, the other a veritable rainbow of colour, glass beads glinting in the fluorescent lighting of the airport.

"For the friends that you talk about all the time!" She said, folding your calloused hands around them. "The rainbow one's for Gamzee, and the red one's for Karkat! Dave, Terezi, John, and Jade each have one too, but they're all exactly the same other than the colours! They can have a battle royale for the one they want." Saura had met the other four before. She'd made red, teal, blue and green, obviously chosen strategically. They both knew that Dave and Terezi would fight over the red one. The ones for Gamzee and Karkat, though; it was like she'd sifted through everything he'd told her about them, quiet afternoons laying on couches while Taureau was at work, Bou sprawled out on the laminate flooring and complaining that his ass hurt and that they were gossiping little girls. She'd strained out the important information and woven their personalities into friendship bracelets. He felt a little emotional.

"Thanks, 'Ra. They're going to love them." She beamed at him, eyes shining in that moist way that made Tavros tug her into a tight hug.

"Stay safe down there."

"We love you!"

"Try not to get anyone pregnant, yeah?" Saura administered a swift smack to the back of Bou's head. Taureau laughed and squeezed Tavros' shoulder.

"You'll do amazing things. We believe in you, okay?"

His family trickled out of the terminal, smiling through tears and shouting inappropriate phrases and blowing kisses. He went through security and waited at the only gate, watching for the plane that would take him away.

He felt like he was going to be sick. His excitement and nervousness mixed into a deadly toxin in his stomach, roiling.

_I'm So MoThErFuCkInG sToKeD tO sEe YoU, bRo. ShIt'S gOnNa Be OfF tHe ChAiN!_

_mE n KaRkAt ArE gOnNa Be AlL uP aNd WaItInG fOr YoU. _

_pRePaRe FoR sOmE sErIoUs HuGgInG bUsInEsS, dUdE. wE'vE mIsSeD yOu._

_HE MEANS HE'S MISSED YOU. HE'S BEEN A FUCKING DEBILITATED, USELESS PIECE OF CRAP SINCE YOU LEFT. PINING OVER YOU LEFT AND RIGHT, HE'S LIKE A DOG WHO'S OWNER LEFT HIM AT THE KENNEL AND THE KENNEL HAPPENED TO BE EXTREMELY COLD AND UNCOMFORTABLE AND FLEA RIDDEN. _

_He DoN't MeAn ThAt, TaVbRo, He'S mIsSeD yOu JuSt As MuCh As I aLl Up AnD hAvE :o)_

He grinned at his phone and his stomach burbled again. He couldn't pull apart the threads of emotions, didn't understand how he was feeling. Everything seemed to be coded, an encryption of physical and psychological reactions that he couldn't read into.

He thought of Vriska and his mouth soured.

He thought of his dad.

He thought of Gamzee and their raps and the way everything he cooked came out a masterpiece and the way his dimple deepened when he grinned.

He wondered how there was any way someone as useless as him, someone as weak and stupid and fucked up, would be worth Gamzee's attention.

He thought about touching him and the thought curdled in his mind, paired with a burning desire and a sense that he would never be able to scrape the taint from his skin and keep himself from infecting the people around him.

He boarded the plane.


	7. No Amount of Whiskey, No Amount of Wine

here it is. the long awaited seventh installment. I apologize wholeheartedly for the wait! I tried to keep it at the lowest level of melodrama as possible while still kind of addressing issues. more issues will definitely be addressed. this is just the beginning, folks. title from Gotta Have You - The Weepies. also, please feel free to peruse all of the beautiful fucking fanart and gift fic I've received at justsaynotopants .tumblr tagged /fanart ! it is all truly choice. I am the happiest clam on the beach, it is me. also also, if you want to comment or criticize or flail or whatever and you don't want to do that here, feel free to tag it with "stab bruno mars" and I will definitely see it. without further ado, please enjoy the chapter!

* * *

"Jesus dick, Gamzee, stop wiggling. You're like an overactive, nervous puppy; I'm surprised your nose hasn't started bleeding from sheer nerves." Karkat had a gentle hand on his shoulder to counteract the glare and condescending tone. Gamzee fiddled with the metal through the bridge of his nose and checked the time on the arrivals screen for the twelfth time in four minutes.

"Dude, I just can't fuckin' chill. I am up and fuckin' excited." Karkat rolled his eyes and slapped his hands away from his piercing.

"Stop touching that! It's bad enough you get your greasy clown paint in it. You're going to get infected and you'll have nothing to showcase your bread and butter with." Gamzee pressed his fingers between his thin thighs, both to keep them away from his fresh piercing and in an attempt to make them stop shaking.

The fifteen minutes between the arrival of the plane and the first Tavros sighting in four months was agonizing. Gamzee fidgeted and fretted and generally drove Karkat to the point of sepukku via paper cuts, exasperated and irritable. Gamzee started tensing up as people began conglomerating around the baggage carousel with Tavros' flight number lit up on various screens.

Upon seeing Tavros' fluffy mohawk, Gamzee stood up and started grinning in earnest.

"Holy shit, you just perked up. You're like a fucking puppy. You're two happy thoughts from dancing on your little paws and doing the pathetic little bark. Don't piss on the carpet, asswipe, because I will not be cleaning up after you."

"Fuck, Karkat, shut up for three motherfuckin' seconds and look at how fuckin' huge he is."

"Wow, that is the exact phrase you should use when you ask him out. Dude'll be swooning all over the place, he won't know what to do with himself."

"No seriously, fuckin' look."

"Sweet mother of fuck, how does he get those shoulders through doorways? Did he spend the summer boulder tossing or some shit?"

"That's about the motherfuckin' size of it, bro."

"If that was a pun I'm probably going to barf on your shoes."

"You're up and safe, dude, that was a high caliber coincidence." Tavros caught sight of them and waved, smiling and grabbing a suitcase from the luggage carousel. Gamzee wondered if anyone would notice him leaping over the short barricade containing the area. He was practically vibrating in his excitement.

Gamzee watched Tavros' broad back, marveling at how much muscle he'd put on over the summer. His thick shoulders and biceps bunched under clingy fabric as he picked up another suitcase with minimal effort, his barrel-chest tapering into a narrow waist and hips. His skin had darkened from working in the sun, obvious tan lines at his wrists and the back of his neck. He was fucking gorgeous, and Gamzee itched to get his arms around his muscled waist. He had to consciously dampen uncharitable thoughts toward the people eyeing him up.

Tavros worked his way through the crowd and Gamzee met him at the exit, hands trembling and grinning wide enough to split his painted mouth. His bags hit the tiling and Gamzee launched himself forward. Tavros' muscles were hard beneath his soft v-neck and his arms wound around Gamzee's skinny waist, pinning their chests together and squeezing. Gamzee flattened his palm against Tavros' back and buried his nose in Tavros' hair, his other arm winding around Tavros' neck.

"Tavbro, I fucking missed you, dude." Tavros nodded and clung, neck bent, forehead against Gamzee's collarbone. Gamzee felt Tavros' fingers tighten in his ratty t-shirt and the jerky shuffle to get closer to him.

"Thanks for the hello, asshole." Karkat's playful fist bounced from Tavros' shoulder to Gamzee's. He could feel Tavros jump and shake against him, felt his breath quicken against his collarbone, the desperate squeeze around Gamzee's ribcage.

"Tav?" Gamzee asked, pulling back and examining him with dark, worried eyes.

"Sorry. Missed you," Tavros mumbled into the crook of his shoulder. Tavros gave him one last, hard squeeze before pulling away and returning the sock to Karkat's shoulder.

"Hey, man. How was your summer?"

"I babysat this useless tool the entire time. He was so fucking dead set on pouting that he was forgetting to shower. You're not allowed to leave again for the express reason that he completely fucking shuts down when you're not around, he's like a toddler desperate for his mommy." Gamzee just rolled his eyes before pulling a sympathetic expression and shrugging.

"Sorry, best friend. Shit happens, a guy's gotta pine." Tavros just laughed, winding an arm around Gamzee's back and squeezing his bony hip.

"It's okay, I'm going to do my best to not leave again. Why are you so skinny, 'Zee? You feel skeletal, it's a little distressing." Gamzee shrugged again, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Had to have my meds tweaked, it made my appetite drop. Not a big deal, I'm eating normally again."

"Which is to say six inhumanly sized meals in a day. Fucker puts away food like a garbage disposal."

"I'm not _that_ motherfuckin' bad, best friend. Hey Tav, why'd you take your septum ring out?" Tavros blinked at the sudden change of topic, furrowing his brows before lighting up with comprehension.

"Oh! I didn't take it out, I just, um, flipped it up. Because of my parents and the whole redneck rural town thing." He flipped the curved, stainless steel barbell out of his nostrils and sniffed, crinkling his nose to get used to the strange feeling of emptiness. Gamzee grinned and tugged at it.

"Speaking of hardware, that's a nice addition to your face," Tavros said, batting at Gamzee's hand. "When did you get that done?"

"A week ago or some shit."

"The fucking idiot did it himself."

"Ray's gone, bro, it was either do it or go somewhere else."

"So you did it on yourself? That seems pretty unsafe."

"Nah, man, it's cool. I up and did it with a mirror in the shop when there was no one in. Hells of easy." Tavros raised an eyebrow and nodded, clearly unconvinced.

"You look motherfuckin' unimpressed with me, Tavbro. I might be a half-cut loser, but I'm the half-cut loser that up and pierced you." Tavros' eyebrows shot up. His scleras almost glowed white in his dark, freckled face.

"No! No, that's not what I meant, I was just, um, it must be, uh, hard to pierce yourself, I think, with the whole mirror image, being backwards, and stuff–"

"Calm your sweet boobies, Tavbro, I'm kidding around with you," Gamzee said, cutting him off with a warm, fond smile and attempting to wrap his arm around one burly shoulder.

"Boobies?" Tavros and Karkat asked at the same time, raising an eyebrow at one another. Gamzee just grinned, reaching down to one of Tavros' pectorals and squeezing twice.

"Honk honk."

* * *

The trip back to the apartment was quick and luckily at one of the few lulls in the often packed transit system. Gamzee attempted to take one of Tavros' bags and was nearly laughed off the skytrain ("It's not even in the sky, what is this bullshit?" "Yes, 'Zee, we went over this last time."). Their return was characterized by Tavros sighing, dropping his bags on the floor of Gamzee's room, and falling face-first into the musty, unmade sheets strewn across the mattress.

"I missed this place. I missed the way your bed smells. I missed you a lot, dude." Gamzee climbed over the hulking mass of Tavros' new muscles, pressing his face into the nape of Tavros' neck. He inhaled and hummed, curling his arms underneath Tavros' armpits and gripping expansive shoulders.

"I fuckin' missed you too, man. Can't imagine you up and had too much free time to think of me, being a cowboy and shit." Tavros heaved a breath and twisted one of Gamzee's shaggy curls through his fingers.

"You don't really have much to think about, when you're mucking out stables and grooming horses day after day. You need a haircut, man, holy shit." Gamzee shook his hair against Tavros' cheek.

"I'll look into getting one after you're all snug as a motherfuckin' bug in your dorm."

"So tomorrow."

"I said I'd look into it." Tavros shifted and dumped Gamzee on the mattress beside him.

"Did you get anything else while I was playing cowboy?" Tavros asked, touching the bridge of Gamzee's nose right below the bar through his skin.

"Did this one," he said, pulling the v-neck of his t-shirt down to show a shiny diamond in the center of his thin chest. "Nearly finished the big old tattoo, too. One more session for the ribcage bit and then touchups."

"The Big Kahuna is nears its apex," Tavros murmured, pushing Gamzee's t-shirt up his thin stomach. He traced the glow of a floating light among crumbling ruins and stared at the stark relief of shadows pooling in Gamzee's atrophied hipbone.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, Tavbro. Motherfucker knows what he's doing, lettin' his imagination run wild on my skin. Dude knows how to ink."

"Can I see it? Or do I have to wait until it's finished?" Gamzee flicked his nose and sat up, rolling over Tavros and off of the bed.

"Course you can, my main motherfucker. Ain't no reason to be waitin' around, it's nearly finished anyway. I'll just show you again." Gamzee wiggled out of his jeans, toeing one sock off and yanking his shirt up to his nipples. Bright splashes of noxious green broke up the dank colour scheme of the swamp. Vibrant masks carved with grotesque expressions hid the faces of misshapen silhouettes dancing through the eroding streets, cobblestones outlined in filthy grout. Strings of lights and shrunken heads decorated the scene, wrapped around the spires of the cemetery fences and draped on low hanging awnings. Voodoo dolls were nailed to bleeding trees. Alligators lay in wait in the brackish water of the swamp, unnamed creatures blinking out from the brush and baring menacing teeth. Gamzee bunched his boxers up on his thigh, pulling the elastic further down on his dangerously thin hips. Tavros swallowed audibly.

"It's disturbing. It looks fantastic." Tavros reached off the bed and ran his fingers over the olive detailing of ripples in the swamp water just above Gamzee's knee. The colour cut off at the bottom of his ribcage, leaving the thin black outlines empty and wanting. Gamzee grinned and his eyes looking sunken from charcoal grease paint and twenty missing pounds.

"Thanks, man," he said, redressing with a sheepish smile. He jumped on one foot, struggling with his sock and falling on the bed. Gamzee half collapsed on top of Tavros, who made an undignified, exaggerated grunt.

"Ugh, you're the heaviest, you are crushing me under your expansive girth," he said, whining and trying to hide his grin through a theatrical grimace. Gamzee wiggled further on top of him and sprawled out.

"Too bad, fucker, I'm gonna crush you under my fat ass. That's what up and happens, bro, you can't stop me now." Tavros laughed and got up on his hands and knees.

"You're really crushing me, 'Zee. I am clearly in a lot of pain. Someone rescue me, please, I just can't take it." Gamzee squawked and gripped the soft cotton of Tavros' t-shirt.

"Oh fuck, the mountain is up and on the move, I repeat, we have a motherfuckin' squirming mountain trying to buck me off. Someone call mineral control, we've got a live one and he's hells of fuckin' rowdy." Tavros laughed and shifted to dump Gamzee on the mattress, sitting up and crossing his legs.

"Do you want to eat something?"

"Are you inferring some shit about my skeletal frame? Just because you're a goddamn paragon of muscle doesn't mean you can pick on us skinny kids." Tavros chucked his knuckles against Gamzee's jaw and removed himself from the bed.

"Yes. That is actually exactly what I am doing. You need to eat, dude." Gamzee brushed dark curls out of dark eyes, crinkling at the corners from his smile.

"I'm eating, dude. Told you, shit happened this summer. Gotta work my weight back up."

"Right." There was a moment of wary silence before Tavros gripped Gamzee's thin wrists and pulled him out of bed. "So let's work on it! Starting, right now. Because flights make me hungry and I'm a mountain. Mountains need to eat a lot, you know, or they get restless and start flattening small, tight knit communities."

The meal of choice was Thai curry, lovingly made from scratch. Tavros looked on in awe when Gamzee cracked open a coconut as he dry fried the coriander and cumin seeds. He sat at the table eating sugared coconut meat, watching Gamzee create a delicacy unmatched by even the fanciest restaurants and listening to him babble about the summer. He talked about Aradia's departure to the Big Apple, about Eridan having a fit about his car being borrowed, about the many stoned adventures of himself and Karkat. He mentioned his paintings being sold at the parlor, the raise he'd earned from doing microdermal implant training. Gamzee made a plate up for Karkat, leaving it on the counter and calling for him before dishing the two of them up.

"Oh my god. Gamzee, this is the best meal I've eaten since I left four months ago."

"I'm glad to be of motherfuckin' service, bro. You know how motherfuckin' pleased I up and get when you like my cooking." Tavros hummed as he ate, shoveling carrots and baby corn and jasmine rice into his mouth.

"Hot damn, Tav, try to breathe between bites, yeah?" Tavros' cheeks coloured and he ducked his head. Gamzee laughed and reached out to tousle his hair.

"You liking my shit that much is the best compliment I ever up and got, dude."

"Holy fucking balls, stop being cute. Just stop. My poor vascular pump can't handle it, I'm about to barf everywhere from sugar intake. If either of you ass wads love me, you'll stop being moony eyed. I'm going to have a fucking coronary from all of this." Gamzee pulled his hand out of Tavros hair and watched his cheeks darken from a rush of blood, grinning sheepishly at Karkat's back.

"Sorry, best friend."

"No you're not. Don't fucking lie to me, you little shit. I can practically feel your smugness."

"Sorry I'm not sorry, then."

"That's what I thought. Can I sit with you cocksuckers or are you having a romantic date?" Tavros inhaled through his laughter and started coughing on the rice he had sucked into his windpipe. Karkat gave him a firm pat on the back and sat down. "I'll take that as a no."

* * *

"Four months and you're coughing like the greenest little motherfucker around."

"No kidding. You _have_ smoked with us before, right? You aren't some weird, super jacked dude who just looks and acts like Tavros, right?" Tavros covered his mouth and leaned his forehead against Gamzee's pointy shoulder, sitting in the chair they had bought for him in their balcony toke circle.

"It's gonna take him so much more sneeze to get on our level."

"I know, what a fucking downer. Pass it over, dude, I'll pack another bowl." Tears built up in Tavros' eyes from coughing so hard.

"But, uh, why is it going to take more for me?"

"Reverse tolerance," Karkat murmured around the baggy pinched between his lips, fighting with the grinder precariously set on his knee. "The more weed you smoke, the less you need to get high." Tavros raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"No way. There's no way that's a real thing."

"Yeah way, motherfucker. And thank whatever fuckin' deity is responsible for that one, because if it were the other way around we'd be on our asses in the streets. All our cash, squandered on a little green."

"Yeah fucking right, shit stain, like I'd let you smoke yourself into destitution." Gamzee laughed, loud and raspy.

"That's why you're my bestie, man. You take care of me. It's a beautiful motherfuckin' miracle." Karkat handed Tavros the bong.

"Oh god. Please don't tell me this is going to be a fucking miracle night. I don't think I can handle the pain and heartbreak of a fucking miracle night."

"What's a miracle night?" Karkat turned to face him, moving at a velocity that made Tavros wince in secondhand neck pain.

"Don't even let him get started on miracles, dude. He'll suck the night up blathering about his lofty philosophy that only makes sense if you get really high and squint and ignore the gaping holes in his logic."

"Oh come on, my brother. It's not all that bad, you're being a fuckin' Debbie downer."

"It is that bad. I promise you that it's that bad. If you don't want your brain tissue to dribble out your ears in a neuron puree, you won't let him start in on miracles." Tavros just nodded and took another hard hit, holding it in his lungs and waiting for his alveoli to suck the THC into his bloodstream. Gamzee watched as Tavros tilted his head back, exhaling a long stream of white smoke. The hard lines of his jaw and throat were defined in the harsh fluorescent illumination from the streetlights. He was thrown into contrast, dark skin and obnoxious light and shadows like puddles of black ink in the dips of his collarbones.

"Shut your mouth, dick bag. You look like an idiot and you're going to start catching flies if you keep it up." Gamzee rolled his head onto Tavros' shoulder, a sleepy grin carved into monochromatic face paint.

"What if I want to be a frog, though. Gonna have to start learning how to catch flies now if I'm gonna survive being a frog." Karkat regarded him with a slack, incredulous expression. Tavros snorted into the bong and nearly ejected the bowl, which only resulted in Gamzee howling with laughter.

"A frog," Karkat said after the ruckus had calmed down.

"Yeah, man. A frog. Like one of those bright poisonous ones that are always so fuckin' mesmerizing to look at."

"You're training to be a frog."

"Ain't nothing wrong with having difficult goals."

"Gamzee, that's an unattainable goal."

"Don't you shatter my dreams."

"You can't grow up to be a fucking frog. It's literally impossible."

"Nothing's impossible. Some miracle's gonna come alone and whisk me away to the Land of the Frogs."

"You're a fucking moron."

"And _you_ are not invited." Tavros laughed around his exhale, resting his head in Gamzee's curls and passing the bong to a thoroughly annoyed Karkat.

"Bowl's done."

"Funny, the bowl and I have that in common." Karkat pulled the bowl and hit it against the sole of his shoe to remove the blackened remains before packing another. Tavros slumped forward in his chair, giggling.

"Look at that, two bowls in and he's high as a kite."

"Thought it was gonna take a smidge more. We underestimated him, brother."

"I'm not your brother. I refuse to be spiritually related to a frog." Gamzee gasped and Tavros choked on another round of laughter.

"Are you up and fuckin' rejecting me for my choices, man? After all we've been through?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm doing."

"I'm hurt. I'm up on the bittersweet verge of tears," Gamzee said, raising his voice in the heat of his dramatics.

"Not to derail your righteous diatribe, but I think Tavros is going to piss his pants."

"What a sorely missed fuckin' sight."

"I know, he's fucking adorable."

* * *

Gamzee was pulled out of his light doze by Tavros' hands on his shoulders, pressing him back into the mattress and straddling his hips.

"Tav? What the fuck, man, it's four in the fuckin' morning, what are you all about?" Gamzee rubbed his eyes and looked up into Tavros' face. His entire countenance was bleached from the dark and the street lighting outside, falling in bright slats across his face from clumsily shut blinds. His expression of confusion melted into one of horrified understanding.

"I. Uh. 'Zee?"

"Yeah, main bro. That'd be myself." He slipped off of Gamzee and turned over in the bed, curling into himself. His hands had been shaking.

"Tavbro, what's up?"

"I, um. Sorry. I kind of forgot where I was. Sorry I woke you up." The cogs in Gamzee's brain caught and spun. He wanted to scream and break things and hurt himself, berate himself for ever thinking that he would be enough for Tavros Nitram. He hated himself for thinking it. Tavros didn't even know. Gamzee was like some douche bag who had temper tantrums because girls they were friends with didn't fall over themselves to date him.

He wondered if Tavros was happy.

He wondered who Tavros would wake up in the middle of the night to straddle and kiss and make love to.

Tavros' breathing slowed down and leveled out. Gamzee stared at the muscled expanse of his bare back. He slipped out of bed and dug his sketchbooks out from the back of his closet.

He ran his fingers over smooth graphite and ink, admired the lovingly wrought portraits of the man in his bed who thought of someone else. He wondered if Tavros could have loved him if he had said anything.

He carefully examined faces caught in various mediums, glancing at the broad stretch of glowing skin wrapped in his sheets, and did his best not to tear the pages.

Gamzee left for work before Tavros woke the next morning, and Tavros was gone when he returned smelling of antiseptic and coated in a day's worth of grime. His suitcases were gone, and Gamzee assumed that he'd met his roommate and they were carting Tavros' stuff to their shared dorm, unpacking and setting up their life for the next eight months. He wondered if Tavros remembered what had happened the night before.

Karkat came home and took a single look at him before swaddling the two of them in blankets and holding Gamzee's head against his chest, kissing his hair and rubbing soothing circles into his back.

Karkat had fallen asleep somewhere between talking about how his stomach was trying to consume itself from hunger and Tavros calling. Gamzee checked the glowing screen as he unwound himself from Karkat and their blankets, padding into his room and shutting the door before answering.

"Gamzee!" Tavros' voice was loud through the tinny speaker, and Gamzee had to hold it away from his ear.

"Yeah, bro? Get your shit all moved in okay?"

"Yes! Everything went, uh, really great, and now I'm out with Dave's crew, but I want to see you really bad!" Gamzee grinned despite himself, mood lifting with Tavros' excitement.

"I'm just chillin' at the home base, main bro."

"Meet me downstairs in, like, twenty minutes." Gamzee was waiting by the front door in ten, wrapped up in a soft, purple hoody and watching out the front window. He watched Tavros stagger up to the door, fiddling with his phone and dropping it on the concrete. Gamzee opened the door for him and raised a teasing eyebrow. Tavros grinned and prance-stumbled towards him, wrapping his thick arms around Gamzee's neck.

"Well aren't you the jolliest little drunk." Tavros made a face at him and pocketed his cell phone.

"I'm not a, um, a drunk. I'm not." Gamzee scrubbed a hand through fluffy, espresso hair.

"I know, man. You're drunk as a skunk right fuckin' now, though." Tavros looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding solemnly.

"Yeah. Hey, can I, uh, stay the night?" Tavros' breath smelled like a Russian vodka distillery. Gamzee nodded, wrapping an arm around his waist and heading towards the staircase.

"Abso-fucking-lutely, bro. Mi casa es su casa, bro. Let's get you upstairs and fill you up with some tasty eats and some water, yeah?"

The trek upstairs was a grueling, stumbling process. Tavros moved like a drugged bull, sluggish and impossibly heavy. Gamzee had never been so happy to walk through his front door. Karkat was still sleeping on the couch. Gamzee pointed to him and put his finger over his mouth, shushing Tavros. Tavros mimed zipping his mouth as he laughed, eyes glazed. Gamzee brought him straight to his room.

"I missed you a lot, Gamzee," Tavros told him from his perch on Gamzee's bed, eating dry pot noodles by the handful and washing them down with iced tea. He was barely talking quieter than his normal speaking voice.

"I missed you too, Tavbro. Shit sucked while you were gone."

"I thought you were Vriska last night." Gamzee froze, muscles stiffening. Tavros crunched on dehydrated ramen noodles in the silence.

"Your girlfriend, right?" Tavros laughed, and it sounded wrong. It rung with a dissonant self deprecation, breaking near the end. Tavros had never seemed so small before.

"No. Not really. I guess I kind of stopped remembering that I didn't like it." Gamzee bit the inside of his cheek against a sudden wave of nausea. The memory of trembling hands on his shoulders held a drastically altered meaning. He waited for Tavros to elaborate; when nothing followed, Gamzee reached out and stroked the protruding bone of Tavros' ankle. Tavros' eyes were wide and glazed and still so very bright through the haze of alcohol.

Ramen noodles peppered the paint-stained carpeting and Gamzee was seated with a very large, very drunk man in his lap who was contenting himself with mouthing sloppily at the blurred edge of white face paint. Gamzee's surprise made him slow. Tavros corrected his inebriated aim and pressed his mouth against Gamzee's, shoving his tongue past his lips. Gamzee cupped Tavros' face and pushed him away, dropping a single, closed mouth kiss against his full lips before wiggling out from beneath him.

"Please don't go," Tavros asked, slurring hard. Gamzee tried to help him into bed and shook his head when Tavros' hands attempted to pull them back together, rearing back. Tavros' mouth was sloppy in his drunkenness, too wet and loose against Gamzee's skin.

"Tavros, stop." Tavros recoiled like he'd been burnt, stumbling and falling against the edge of the bed. Gamzee helped him the rest of the way in, tucking the blankets around his shoulders.

"You're drunk, dude."

"I want you." Gamzee watched the way the sheets pulled as Tavros reached between his legs, spreading his thighs under the blanket.

"You're drunk, Tav, you don't know what you want."

"You want me. I know you do, I'm not just imagining shit."

"Yeah. But you're up and wasted, bro."

"So?" Gamzee felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. He wanted to puke over the conviction in Tavros' voice.

"So I don't want to hurt you. Ever. Especially not fuckin' like this. I want you. I do. I wanna be with you."

"So just-"

"No."

* * *

Gamzee turned the lights off as he walked out of his room and didn't let himself look back. He woke Karkat up, sending him to bed so he could sleep on the couch.

When he woke the next morning, Tavros was gone.

Gamzee tried not to be hurt when Tavros didn't answer his messages. It was obvious that Tavros was avoiding him, but whether it stemmed from embarrassment or unrequited feelings or something else completely, Gamzee couldn't tell. He threw himself into work, into art, into anything that took his mind off of Tavros.

He sent texts every day for a full ten days before Tavros returned his message.

_i'M SORRY,_

_ oH mY gOd, I tHoUgHt YoU'd DiEd._

_ LiStEn MaN wE nEeD tO tAlK._

_ cAN WE JUST, fORGET ABOUT IT,_

_ nO. nOt HaPpEnInG._

_ i'M SORRY, i WAS DRUNK AND DID, sTUPID STUFF, _

_ can we just up and meet somewhere and talk. _

_ you don't have to come back to the apartment if you don't want. _

_ I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THIS. _

_ it's important. _

_ PLEASE. _

_ oKAY,_

* * *

Tavros looked tired sitting at the washed out Formica table in Gamzee's kitchen. His square hands were wrapped tightly around his cup of hot cocoa despite the heat outside. Gamzee wanted to try and rub the shadows out from under his eyes with thumbs dry from paint thinner and antiseptic. Tavros sipped at his beverage and kept his bright eyes hooded, staring into his mug as if Mufasa himself was speaking the secrets of life to him.

"Look closer," Gamzee murmured, and Tavros' head shot up in surprise.

"Um, what?"

"Sorry, bad motherfuckin' time for a Lion King reference." Tavros snorted and took another sip before staring into chocolatey depths.

"Remember who you are, Simba."

"You're fuckin' perfect." Gamzee ached from the way Tavros' shoulders seized up. His impossibly bright eyes seemed hollow when he finally met Gamzee's gaze.

"I'm not."

"I'm not gonna up and start a fight with you over this, bro, but you kind of fuckin' are." Tavros was caught between stunned and frightened, a timid church mouse with bull shoulders. Gamzee couldn't help but think of him surrounded in text books at a table in the back of a library.

"I'm interested in you. Not from the whole drunken come on bullshit. I, uh." Gamzee stopped and scratched at the back of his neck, watching Tavros' shaking hands, the ripples in his drink.

"I don't really go outta my motherfuckin' way to hang out with people. I like you. The romantic kind of like. You're the bitchtits keeper of my boyish fuckin' affections and shit."

"I'm not good for you." Gamzee swallowed hard and raked a hand through his hair.

"I think you'll motherfuckin' find that you are, Tav." Silence prevailed and made the kitchen seem cramped. Tavros gnawed on his bottom lip. He traced the handle of his mug with a calloused finger. Gamzee's heart was beating hard enough he thought it would open his ribs up like a birdcage and spill his viscera across the linoleum in shining coils, exotic snakes with glimmering scales.

"What are your meds for?" The question shot through his ears like a fire alarm in a college dormitory.

"Schizophrenia." Tavros' head shot up, regarding Gamzee with disbelieving eyes. "Welcome to the West Coast Mental Health transitional outpatient housing, Tavbro."

"I thought it was cancer."

"Why'd you think a motherfuckin' ridiculous thought like that, man?"

"The, uh, weight loss. Mostly."

"Nah. Side effect of my meds."

"At least it's, um. Not fatal." The tension in Gamzee's frame released in a heavy exhale.

"When were you going to tell me?"

"Today. That's the biggest part of important information that I needed to up and relate to your hear ducts."

"And the other part?"

"The fact that I can't get you outta my fuckin' brain." Tavros pushed his drink away and held his forehead in his hands. The tendons in his hands stood out when he gripped espresso hair shot with auburn, lightened from working in the sun.

"I'm not good for you." Gamzee reached out and wrapped gentle fingers around Tavros' wrists, urging his hands away from his face.

"I think you should let me up and decide what's good for me." Gamzee stroked a thumb across Tavros' strong jaw and pressed a single, dry kiss to his forehead. Tavros' eyes were glossy from unshed tears. Gamzee felt something heavy build up in the base of his throat, a barricade of emotion that stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

"I'm not gonna make you do any fuckin' thing, bro. I'm not gonna pull whatever bullshit moves you've up and had to live through. I just want to make you happy." Mile long lashes clumped together from moisture and his eyes were painfully bright.

"You already make me happy." Gamzee could hear the slow, steady drip of the kitchen faucet over the deafening buzz in his ears.

Tavros' lips were soft and sweet against his and it was all the answer Gamzee needed.


End file.
